The Beyond
Manufacturer : Grindhouse Releasing
Rating : 4.0
Reviews : 18
Price :
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And on the day the gates of hell are opened, the dead will walk the earth!
From legendary Italian horror master Lucio Fulci come the ultimate classic of supernatural terror. A remote and cursed hotel, built over one of the seven gateways, becomes a yawning malevolent abyss that begins devouring both the bodies and the souls of all who enter in a graphic frenzy of gory crucifictions, chunkblowing chain-whippings, eyeball impalements, sulphuric acid meltdowns, flesh-eating tarantulas, throat-shredding demon dogs and ravenous bloodthirsty zombies. THE BEYOND is a towering schievement in hair-raising, mind-bending cinematic terror!
WARNING Due to its SHOCKING and VIOLENT subject matter, no one under 17 should view this film.
SPECIAL FEATURES
– Original UNRATED, UNCENSORED director’s cut
– Spectacular hi-definition digital anamorphic widescreen transfer
– Breathtaking 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound re-mix by Academy Award nominee Paul Ottosson
– New 2008 intro by Catriona MacColl
– Rare on-set interview with director Lucio Fulci
– Provocative commentary by stars Catriona MacColl and the late genre superstar David Warbeck
– Interviews with all the major stars and key crew members
– Optional Italian language soundtrack and original mono mix
– Lost German pre-credit sequence in FULL COLOR
– Necrophagia music video directed by Jim VanBebber (THE MANSON FAMILY)
– Original theatrical trailers
– Extensive gallery of stills and poster art
– Liner notes by legendary horror journalist Chas. Balun
– Plus other surprises!
5 Comments
I can’t really say much bad about this movie because it is unique. It’s one of the crazier zombie flicks I’ve ever seen, there’s a LOT going on. The movie is very gory and exploitative, moreso than any other Fulci movie I’ve ever seen, but since I like my horror with a good dose of fun this movie is a bit too serious for me. Still, bad acting and makeup aside, there’s really nothing else like it. The infamous tarantula scene is a horrifyingly interminable combination of Jose Mojica Marins and H.G. Lewis. Yes it looks fake at times, but Fulci’s direction is relentless and terrifying. Not my favorite Fulci, I like his lighter horror work better (The Black Cat, Seven Notes in Black), but for over-the-top gore hounds, weird-movie lovers and fans of Italian trash, this will probably hit the spot.
Since it is being used very deceptively in the description I am including Roger Ebert’s full quote about the movie (minor spoiler ahead)… “Fulci was known for his gory special effects (the Boston critic Gerald Peary, who has seen several of his films, cites one in which a woman vomits up her intestines), and “The Beyond” does not disappoint. I have already mentioned the scene where the tarantulas eat eyeballs and lips. As the tarantulas tear away each morsel, we can clearly see the strands of latex and glue holding it to the model of a corpse’s head. Strictly speaking, it is a scene of tarantulas eating makeup. (One half star)”
A young woman from New York inherits a hotel in Louisiana that is really one of the seven doorways to Hell. As she renovates the place, the dead begin to escape and slaughter the living in the kind of horrifically gory sequences that Italian horror is famous for. Only a local doctor and a mysterious blind girl are around to offer assistance as the young woman tries to survive and unravel the inexplicable series of events she’s found herself in.
The second film of director Lucio Fulci’s so-called “Gates of Hell Trilogy”, 1981’s “The Beyond” is often heralded as his masterpiece. This isn’t my own, personal opinion. I have only seen a few of his films, not enough to make such a bold statement, but I haven’t been inspired to call any of them “masterpieces”. They are great for gorehounds if they are not picky about realism, and they can have awesome endings (like this one or the end of Zombie), but they focus so much on (often rather fake looking) gory death scenes and the writing is so bad that it can be hard for them to hold my attention, even when they have great stars among the many bad actors, like this film. “The Beyond” also has a great setting and a good concept that just are’t fleshed out enough. I don’t feel the Louisiana feeling is truly captured, probably in part because of the largely Italian cast that is fully dubbed throughout. Plus, there’s the fact that zombies were stuck into the story just because they were popular at the time. Watching the film, it does seem like the zombies were thrown in just for the sake of having them. Negatives aside, there’s some good, creepy imagery in this movie, and especially the payoff of the final scene. The film stars Catriona MacColl and David Warbeck, who have a delightful commentary on this DVD that I found more enjoyable than just watching the film itself. Some other extras include trailers, still galleries, some insightful interviews, a “lost” German pre-credit sequence, a freaky Necrophagia music video, and an intro by Catriona MacColl. It’s a great DVD release for true fans of this film. If you’re not familiar with it though, “The Beyond” may or may not be your cup of tea. I like the concept and the creepy ending very much, but the final product hasn’t made me a fan of Italian horror yet. I just don’t feel they are well paced or coherently written and put together. The gore is gratuitous in the worst way and the dubbing just doesn’t work for me in stories set in English speaking countries. Nevertheless, I’m glad I got the chance to see this one. Any film as beloved by fans as “The Beyond” is worth viewing once at least and looks good on the true eclectic’s DVD shelf.
The Beyond is a 1981 Italian horror film directed by gore pioneer Lucio Fulci. While this film might have a decent enough story to get more credit than other movies of its ilk, it would be a huge oversight to avoid stressing that this is a very gory movie. Fulci stares at gore and especially seems fixated on destroyed eyeballs staring right back at him. It’s almost distracting how obsessed he really is with it. Fulci, who died in 1996 and is often called “the godfather of gore”, also directed the semi-cult classic Zombi II, a film that features the long awaited battle between a shark and a zombie. That’s right, a shark fights a zombie. Obviously we are not talking about Alfred Hitchcock here, but I’m rating this on perhaps a different scale. This is a Halloween horror treat that has moderately creepy moments, hilarious zombies, and gore like nobody’s business.
In 1927 Louisiana, a cliche angry riot go to this hotel and dump calcium oxide on some poor artist who they believe to be some kind of evil warlock. They’re right actually, and killing him opens up one of the seven doors of hell, and so the dead can now walk the Earth. Sixty some odd years later and the hotel is inherited by some girl from New York. The film has some characters that are memorable enough and in the end the story comes together and actually turns out to be pretty interesting. This was one of those movies I stayed up late watching one night waiting for the actresses to take their clothes off, which tends to happen in movies like this more often than not. It never happened here but I finished watching it anyway which says something about the quality I suppose. In other words, even for it is, The Beyond is not total trash.
As it turns out there is even an interesting, albeit vague exploration of life and death happening here that creates a surprisingly unique atmosphere. If you’ve seen any of Fulci’s other films you might think it was an accident, but some scenes shoot zombies in colored light and so forth which is not only a direct atmosphere tip from Dario Argento, but also very intentional. There is a creepy surrealist feel in The Beyond. I’m giving Fulci some credit here, he tried hard to make this movie more than just a splatter film. On the flip side of the atmosphere coin, and atmosphere is always so crucial in a horror film, the music in The Beyond is nearly unbearable.
Anyway, so I’m giving The Beyond a partial recommendation to those of you who might appreciate a horror film that is gratuitously gory and sort of unique. There is no doubt in my mind that many will call The Beyond garbage.
During Sid’s journey to do 31 horror reviews for the month of October proves to be a time to get some cult classics in. For us it has to be a mixed bag of everything to do it just right. Our attempt is to sample a little from each type of horror category. Tonight we landed on hell dwelling bloodthirsty zombies, which appears to be a category on it’s own. The Beyond is known as one of director Lucio Fulci’s best works showing off his twisted imagination in a world nobody wants to enter, especially an elf named Sid.
Story goes like this; New Yorker Liza Merril winds up inheriting a run down hotel in Louisiana and decides to make a little investment out of it. Not a good idea. She dumps her savings into the building in hopes to restore it only to have most of the repair workers die off quick. Reason being the hotel was built atop one of the gates of Hell, which proves to be not the best real estate property. Despite being warned by a blind woman Liza decides to investigate and finds herself in a world of blood thirsty zombies. Since the portal was opened during construction the dead were permitted to roam free.
This one was a very strange experience, but not in a bad way. Any Italian horror is far different from the typical crap we pump out every week here in the US. It just messes with your brain far more then any other genre. When it comes to the Halloween season this would be a good one to watch despite some slow moments. There were some moments of boredom but not enough to make it a bad watch. When you combine zombies, flesh eating Tarantulas, all knowing blind girl and her killer German Shepard, with a hotel built over the gates of hell you’re sure to have an interesting horror on your hands.
A nice weirdly dark film. Good acting , good plot , good production values. And the dubbing was funny and weird. The special effect were good too.