"UNSPEAKABLE: BEYOND THE WALL OF SLEEP" (2025) Takes Lovecraft To The Brink Of Madness (REVIEW)
Dreams are a great landscape for horror movies. They eschew the need for logic and ideas don’t have to be tethered to reality so much as what you can afford to create. That “afford” part is usually the sticking point, but our obsession with dreams goes beyond horror and into our daily lives. Some people extensively journal their dreams looking for patterns and/or meaning, and many have written about what our dreams and the ubiquitous imagery we experience in them may signify. H.P. Lovecraft also wrote on dreams, and it’s the basis for Chad Ferrin’s latest adaptation, “Unspeakable: Beyond the Wall of Sleep” which releases on March 4, 2025, from Breaking Glass Pictures. Is this adaptation more of a dream, or a nightmare?
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
Renowned oneirologist Ambrose London is requested to appear at Arkham Asylum to study the strange case of dissociative identity disorder with patient James Fhelleps/Joe Slater.
HOW IS IT?
If there is one consistent trait amongst almost every single H.P. Lovecraft film adaptation, it is that they all have to take liberties with the story to make it suitable for the medium. For better or worse, Lovecraft’s obtuse and clinical prose is at times poignant and precise, but more often ambiguous and broad. Not to mention, he doesn’t have much of a sense of humor, but many of the movies based on his works use humor as a vehicle for horror. “Unspeakable: Beyond the Wall of Sleep” (“Unspeakable” for short) takes many liberties with Lovecraft’s story, and while they certainly won’t be for everyone, there is no denying the audacity and unapologetic commitment to Chad Ferrin’s vision and has a lot in common with some of the best Lovecraft adaptations out there.
Lovecraft’s original story for “Beyond the Wall of Sleep” is less than 10 pages long, so to expand that across a 90-minute movie is going to require some artistic license, and anyone familiar with Ferrin’s oeuvre should have some idea what to expect here. Dr. London (Edward Furlong) is brought in to investigate the strange case of Joe Slater / James Fhellps (Robert Miano), one of a few nods to one of Ferrin’s early films, who is suffering from a rare case of multiple personality disorder that makes him present as two separate people and it has something to do with Joe/James’ dreams. What ensues has to literally seen to be believed and is the kind of gonzo filmmaking that has the energy of Troma’s best films and the campiness that makes Lovecraft adaptations like “From Beyond” so effective. From giant cosmic dick monsters, baby-eating fever dreams, and one of the best hand-in-garbage disposal scenes ever committed to film. To say that “Unspeakable” deviates from Lovecraft’s story is given, it’s simply too short to be anything but a 20-minute movie without any padding, but these deviations are the kind that fill in gaps in Lovecraft’s writing so that the transition from page to screen can happen. Do all the additions make sense, no, but if you jive with excess and weird in spades you will certainly be entertained.
And when we say “excess” and “weird,” we aren’t kidding. There is an unhinged “anything goes” quality to “Unspeakable” that makes it truly hard to predict where things are going even if you’ve read the source material before. It’s not about the destination, it’s the journey with “Unspeakable.” Some gags do outwear their welcome by the end, and those who are easily offended by genitalia may want to take heed, but everyone is committed to the bit even when things go off the rails, catch on fire, and explode into chunky cosmic bits. Special acknowledgement to Miano who goes all-in on his dual role and how magnificently he owns it as he bares it all. We could certainly see some criticisms being lobbed at “Unspeakable” for how outlandish things get and perhaps that speaks to the lightness of the source material and its very contained narrative, but alas as all good or even great Lovecraft adaptations do they embellish. They color in the vague outlines the prolifically quirky author left behind to create something less of a direct adaptation and more of an “inspired by” motif.
LAST RITES
“Unspeakable: Beyond the Wall of Sleep” takes the notoriously light source material and lathers on unserious amounts of sex and violence with admirable dedication to practical effects that epitomize some of the best Lovecraft adaptations. It certainly won’t appeal to all, but it is undeniably entertaining.
THE GORY DETAILS
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Where can you watch it?
“Unspeakable: Beyond the Wall of Sleep” will be released on March 4, 2025, on Digital VOD from Breaking Glass Pictures.
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