The Beyond

A young woman inherits a hotel from a deceased relative and begins to renovate. After some mysterious accidents and visions the woman learns that the hotel is built over one of seven doorways to hell.

Directed by – Lucio Fulci

Written by – Dardano Sacchetti, Giorgio Mariuzzo, Lucio Fulci

Starring – Catriona MacColl, David Warbeck, Cinzia Monreale, Antoine Saint-John, Veronica Lazar, Anthony Flees, Giovanni De Nava, Al Cliver, Michele Mirabella, Gianpaolo Saccarola, Maria Pia Marsala, Laura De Marchi

This one is for Stacie Ponder for the Final Girl Film Club. Really, you guys should be reading that blog as well. Just don’t forget about me!

After seeing The Beyond I have now seen only 2 of Lucio Fulci’s films, Zombie being the other one. I know, that’s a little sad but I’m working on seeing more of his work as both of those films have really impressed me. I’m also starting to wonder if Lucio Fulci has a thing about eyeballs because someone is always getting theirs ripped out, poked, prodded or pulled.

Now as far as story goes in this flick we’re not given alot to work with. There’s a hotel, it’s built over a doorway to hell, bad stuff happens. That’s pretty much it but it works. You don’t really need to know more than that to understand and follow along. Story seems to just be the interlude between great scenes of gore. And gore is plentiful in here. Melting faces, poked out eyeballs, spiders eating a guys face and we cap it all off with some zombies. And how could I forget a truly creepy performance by Cinzia Monreale as a blind girl named Emily who spends her time in the film warning Liza (Catriona MacColl) about how evil the hotel is and playing the most creepy piece of music on the piano.

The effects on display here are gruesome and done very well, especially the scene with the spiders as I hate, hate, hate spiders. You couldn’t pay me enough to let the buggers in this film crawl on me. *shudder* Lucio Fulci does zombies extremely well and I was surprised to read how the distributors of the film didn’t like his original idea for the story about a haunted house and wanted him to add zombies. I guess we’re the winners in the end though as this film is easily a classic.

The mood of the film is very tense and the music, although kind of cheesy sounding, fits well. I don’t know about his other films but the moment I heard the score for the movie I was reminded of Zombie. When it’s all brought together we’re left with an amazing film. Great gore that isn’t bogged down by tons of useless story-telling, some great characters that are actually scary and an ending that makes you want to start discussing the details of the film.

The only bad part is that The Beyond seems to be in so many different cuts. I was lucky enough to get my hands on an 87 minute cut of the film but have seen quite a few 83 minute cuts and would hate to think about what they cut. This came out in 1981 which seems to be the biggest time of censorship in horror films and I’m not surprised to hear that The Beyond was one of it’s victims.

If you’re looking for a great gore flick than this is it. Just don’t expect a sweeping story to accompany it. Take it for what it is and enjoy what I can imagine is one of Lucio Fulci’s great films. I know that after having seen this one I’m ready for more of his work.

Under the marquee – Will