Tony's Review of From Beyond

From Beyond starts with a question I find hard to shake: what if things surround us that our senses cannot detect? Crawford Tillinghast builds a machine to find out. When he invites an old friend to see what he has discovered, it is clear the experiment has changed him.

I like how Lovecraft makes the discovery frightening almost at once. The machine reveals things moving through the air and even through our bodies. They may have been there all along. Tillinghast is just as troubling. He wants his friend to see that he was right, even after learning how dangerous that knowledge can be.

The explanation involving hidden senses and the pineal gland is shaky, and Lovecraft’s prose can be too much. Sometimes he keeps describing the horror after the image has already done its job. Still, this story is short enough that its central idea never loses its grip.

As with much of his work the writing can be dense. Still this is one of his first shots at cosmic horror and a good one from a story perspective.