William Sanderson, strapped into an improvised contraption that forces him to reflect on the end of a touch-and-go career in pictures.
Although many a indie horror writer claims to worship at the altar of the England master H.P. Lovecraft very few have done anything but set his corpse spinning into high rotation. Lovecraft is the most plagarized writer in horror movie history and to prove it I present to you: Barrett J. Leigh's Beyond The Wall of Sleep (2006) based on the Lovecraft story of the same name.
"No Mish-Hand-Link Ov Der Pashunts!" Per-Nounzes, er, pronounces the inept and distinctly Germanic director of The Happy Hills Asylum, Dr. Fenton (Marco St. John). The movie begins to loose it's footing early with all the hackneyed shrieking and series of overwrought editing effects. This happens early enough to let the unsuspecting viewer know just how badly things are going to get from there.
In this 2006 Lion's Gate release, That's 70's Show Topher Grace look-a-like Fountain Yount is intern Edward Eischel, a young fella who creeps around an Appalachian mental asylum in the 1930's. Yount shambles across the screen as a dopey one-dimensional "genius" who apologetically grumbles his way through monologue after monologue in the vein of "It is now I who have the POWER! Hee-hee, ha ha, heh. Huh?"
Fountain Yount (get it? huh, huh) reflects on the nature of love and sexual gratification with his best gal, and part-time science experiment, Ardelia.
Yount butchers any and all semblence of a script while diagnosing the meek yet also inbred maniac killer Joe "Slaughter" Slaader played by William Sanderson (Deadwood and Newhart). Although Sanderson is bad in it, it's Yount who runs into frame to deliver unforgettable and gripping lines such as: "Oh. Me brains! You monsters!"
Tom Savini makes a short cameo in the opening scenes as an angry Sheriff poking mentally challenged hicks with a big-ass shot gun before making a well advised exit from the impending disaster of a film.
The next 79 minutes are devoted to a misunderstood tumor named And-Douche-Us and boy does it ever. Apparently, all anyone needs to bring the Grand Duke of Hell to Earth (And-Douche-Us) is a clock radio, intensely bad editing effects, 20 clammy actors, a dozen lens flares and paper thin script. Who woulda thunk it? Roll over, Lovecraft! Here comes Barrett J. Leigh!
References:
IMDB, Beyond the Wall of Sleep (2006)
It Came From Hollywood!, Trepanning for Beginners
Beyond The Wall Of Sleep is available at:
