This wasn't supposed to happen god damn it.
Peaking this early is usually unheard of whenever I do this silly marathon.
I suppose that expecting quality from one of horror's most underappreciated artists was a given, but I still don't think that I was ready for Lucio Fulci's The Beyond. Being more than familiar with the man's body of work, this has somehow slipped though my fingers every time that I tried to watch it. Whether it was due to bad timing, the physical copy of the Blu-Ray being stolen from my job, or just laziness, the full-length feature that is widely considered by historians to be the best picture from the late Italian director just never quite made it onto the countdown. Seeing as how I'm now thirty-four, there were no more excuses left and I finally sat down, pressed play, and prepared for whatever would come about.
The plot to The Beyond is a fairly simple one, though it certainly doesn't unfold the way that you expect it to. A young woman named Liza inherits a hotel in Louisiana, and plans to re-open the establishment once renovations have been completed. Unbeknownst to her, the property has a sinister history to it: fifty-four years prior, a painter was brutally murdered by a suspicious band of townsfolk, who suspected the man of practicing black magic in an attempt to bring about hell on earth. Following a serious of bizarre (and occasionally fatal) accidents and an encounter with a blind girl named Emily who warns the new caretaker to leave the premises that she seems so intent on reopening, Liza begins to feel like something is very, very wrong with the inn. That is the best that I can do for The Beyond's plot, because what follows is a series of very odd, violent, and nightmarish sequences that make you wonder what is real and what isn't. This story is about confusing the audience, but not actually leaving them "confused." Look, I know that may sound very pretentious, but trust me on this one.
Cast-wise, the most memorable of this crew is easily actress Cinzia Monreale. Sporting white contact lenses and body language that gives the viewers an idea that there's more to her than meets the eye (I'll see myself out) to this mysterious stranger. The technical aspects of The Beyond are also impressive, and extra credit has to be given to cinematographer Sergio Salvati as well, whose previous work with Fulci on Zombie (aka Zombi 2) was equally impressive, and the two have been able to craft an otherworldly feel that permeates throughout a number of pictures. Then there's composer Fabio Frizzi, who in this humble geek's opinion, should be celebrated just as much as his fellow countrymen in Goblin. The score to The Beyond is equal parts grandiose and threatening, and the main theme in particular sounds as close to watching our world come to an end as I've heard in quite a while. But you don't want me to talk about how great the music or camera work is, do you? Nooooo, you want me to talk about the nasty material, a.k.a. what attracts a majority of newcomers to the world of Italian horror classics: the over-the-top gore. Well, I'm sorry to say, but The Beyond doesn't sport a single drop of blood. None. Nothing is spilled in the moments where a woman has sulfuric acid poured onto her face, or when a dog violently tears open someone's throat, or when someone is shot in the face which results in their head bursting like an egg that is thrown off the top of a building.
The bloodshed in The Beyond is some of the most ghastly that I've seen to date in any Unseen Terror entry, and it is so masterfully done that you'll be smiling like a madman right after squirming like a child at the doctor's office. To use music analogies: if the violence in Dario Argento's films were Neurosis, then this is Carcass. This means that if you're squeamish (one particular scene gave me uneasy flashbacks to when I was a child and freaked out over the film Arachnophobia), be very careful. So, now that the ass kissing is out of the way, I have to talk about some of the problems with this gem. As stated above, sometimes the movie starts to fall apart by filling in the time to do things because it's likely that Fulci and his crew think said moments are cool enough to make you realize that they're kind of irrelevant to the plot or make zero sense in the context of everything. The ending is also a bit of a head scratcher (and seems rather abrupt), but if you piece portions of the script together, it makes more sense.
I have at least sixteen other flicks to watch before October ends, but Lucio Fulci's The Beyond has set the bar pretty high for those to come. It's a dark, shocking, strange, bloody, and ultimately mesmerizing piece of Italian horror that is essential for anyone looking to venture out beyond the realm of "traditional" cinema, especially of the more grim variety. Unfortunately, it appears as those the exquisite Blu-Ray from Grindhouse Releasing is close to (if not already) going out of print, so acquiring a copy should be done as soon as possible. If you prefer your films streamed however, then you are in luck as Shudder has the film (along with many of Fulci's other works) available to watch whenever you have the free time, while Amazon Prime has it under the title when it was cut up and released in the U.S: 7 Doors of Death.
Heck while you're at it, go watch City of the Living Dead or Zombie too and we can argue about which of the three has the most repulsive sequences involving facial harm. We'll totally look like normal when doing so.
Tomorrow, I'm taking another quick break from full-length features in search of some...."creepy" television.
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