From Beyond

I actually went on a little Charles Band bender a while ago. One of the movies I watched was From Beyond. I was sitting here enjoying a Pabst trying to think of a topic to cover to go with that movie. Then it hit me. I should tell one of my favorite stories. This is one of the stories that I typically tell my married friends after they had a couple of kids. They are usually terrified of getting a vasectomy, but my story tends to ease their minds somewhat.

My wife and I have two beautiful daughters. Our second was born shortly after my 26^th birthday. The plan was after our second was born I was going to get ‘fixed’. At the time I was working as an electrician. One of the guys I worked with at the time would always tell this story of his botched vasectomy. It turned out that he was a freak of nature. He would tell us about after his second kid he went in for the procedure. About five years later his wife ended up pregnant. At first it caused quite the ruckus at their house. Before they ended up in divorce he went in for a sperm count test. Turned out he wasn't shooting blanks. A normal male has one tube on each side. This guy had one tube on one side, and two on the other. When they did the original snip they only did one on each side. After you have the procedure you are supposed to go in and have a sperm count test done. This guy never did because he was too ‘busy’.

As I mentioned, after my second was born I went in to get ‘cut’. At the time we were living close to Madison, Wisconsin. Naturally I went to the UW hospital to have the procedure done. I went through the whole interview process. They do this to be sure that you are actually ready to become sterile, and not just doing it for birth control. After I passed the tests I was given the OK to go under the knife.

I wasn't nervous at first. My dad had gone through the same thing, and told me there was nothing to worry about. Well the UW hospital is a learning hospital. Now this normally wouldn't have bugged me. But, it turned out that the doctor that was supposed to be performing my procedure had a new intern, and this was going to be her first real procedure. The one piece of advice that everyone kept giving me was to be sure that I didn't get a boner while I was getting a part of my manhood removed, and since my doctor was supposed to be an old man that was not going to be a problem. All of sudden my doctor turned from a sixty year old grandpa to a college co-ed. It so happened that she didn't apply the local anesthesia properly the first time. Trust me, a knife in the ball sack fucking hurts. Once I was properly numbed up I didn't have to worry about boners. That whole area was numb.

The vasectomy itself is a simple process. They make a small incision on each side. Then they cauterize the vasa differentia. If I remember right that took about ten minutes to do. After it was over the doctor and nurse left the room. That left only me and the intern. I was lying on the table while she stood beside me. We stayed like that for probably fifteen minutes. We talked about my wife and kids, her schooling, and how she liked becoming a doctor. Finally she started going over the recovery speech. She told me to be sure to take it easy for a couple of days. She said that is there is any swelling that I should apply ice, and that frozen vegetables worked the best. She told me that if I did overexert myself they might swell up like a couple of softballs. Then she proceeded to tell me that the incisions were small enough that they didn't require stitches, but they might seep a little blood. She told me not to be alarmed if that were to happen. She said, and I quote, ‘If they start to bleed, just do what I am doing right now’.  As anyone would say my natural reaction was ‘and what are you doing?’ I looked toward my crotch and this young intern was cradling my scrotum, and her reply was ‘just be sure to keep pressure on them.’ To which I responded with ‘Have you been doing that this whole time?’ Of course she said ‘Yep!’

That’s enough sharing about my balls. Let’s move onto the good stuff.

From Beyond stars Jeffrey Combs, and Barbara Crampton, both have starred in other Charles Band movies. The film was shot in Italy, which was a cost saving method that was used for several of Charles Band movies. It was shot on a sound stage called Dinocitta just outside of Rome. Dinocitta was originally constructed by Dino DeLaurentiis, but was seized by the government for nonpayment of taxes, and then sold to Empire Studios. From Beyond was one of the first films shot at that venue during its period of ownership by Empire. The story for From Beyond is based on a H. P. Lovecraft short story of the same name. This is not the only H. P. Lovecraft story that Charles Band has brought to life. There is also the Re-Animator movies, which I will get to eventually, and The Evil Clergyman.