The Beyond, 1981.
Directed by Lucio Fulci.
Starring Catriona McCall, David Warbeck, Ciniza Monreale and Antoine St John.
SYNOPSIS:
In New Orleans in the 1920s, an artist is gruesomely killed by an angry mob who believe he is a warlock. Several decades later, a young woman named Liza acquires the hotel where the artist was killed hoping to reopen it, unaware of its gruesome past. After a series of horrific deaths at the hotel, Liza soon discovers that her hotel actually sits upon one of the seven gates of hell and that its opening has allowed the living dead to spill out and terrorise the living.
Horror nerds need no introduction to horror maestro Lucio Fulci, the cult Italian director whose gory specialities in films such as the gloriously daft Romero cash-in Zombie Flesh Eaters (aka Zombie vs Shark aka Shard vs Eyeball) and the intestine spewing oddity City of the Living Dead have thrilled gore hounds and annoyed the censors for decades.
Mr. Fulci graces us with his presence once more this October with the film that fans often proclaim to be his masterpiece. So join me as we take a step into The Beyond.
Much like Zombie Flesh Eaters and City of the Living Dead before it, The Beyond is an Italian production with the actors being mostly dubbed thus I don’t feel that I can adequately critique their performances. Although I always love a challenge and let’s be honest who doesn’t love some bad dubbing in their horror!
Catriona McCall makes a welcome return from City of the Living Dead acting as our heroine once more and doing another fine job at it, even if her voice (which I assume is her own) seems to have trouble deciding what kind of accent the character has, with it alternating between generic American, wonky Southern and what sounds like Cary Grant. This accent roulette can often be rather jarring but it does make her performance a very amusing one at the very least. And is it me or does she look a bit like Naomi Watts?
David Warbeck (who again I assume is dubbing himself) acts as our male lead, seemingly cursed to have a perpetual look of annoyance and discomfort on his face, like he’s stood a pile of dog crap and can’t quite get rid of the smell.
Warbeck is also fine in his role with him being effective if the slightly dumb hero in the film’s zombie-filled climax, shooting a horde of zombies everywhere but the head despite having killed several of the coffin dodgers by turning their heads into craters. Although despite his heroic idiocy, Warbeck gets marks for dispatching of a zombie school girl in possibly the most hilariously shocking death ever filmed.
The supporting cast is largely made of obviously dubbed European actors whose performances are really only as good as the voices they are paired with. Some are lucky enough to be given voices that give decent performances that fit the characters, however, a lot of the other actors are burdened with some very questionable Southern accents that utterly ruin the dark feel of the film. Very much as in the case of a bookshop owner who speaks with a Southern accent so slimy that I swear he’s seconds away from saying “You got a real purdy mouth city boy”.
But enough about dumb things like the acting, the real stars of any Fulci film are not the actors, but the gory special effects, with Fucli delivering some stunning displays of grotesque beauty here.
If you thought Zombie Flesh Eaters didn’t punish the human eye enough with its wooden shard merger, then The Beyond has you covered with no less than three variations of Fulci’s signature eye gouging.
We have a zombie hand squashing a man’s head till his eyes pop out, a fate that befalls poor old Sarah Palin fan Joe the Plumber (yes really) or if you like to mix things up we get the equally effective rusty spike through the eye socket. Both of these moments are brutal and shocking with the excellent effects and sound design really selling the grossness of the scene, although I’d maybe avoid watching this film if you’re having meatballs for dinner.
The crowning glory however is a several minute long ordeal in which one poor sap has his face and eyes torn to pieces by a horde of tarantulas, some of which look a bit too real to be puppets. It’s definitely a scene that scored highly on my scale of 1 to FUCKING NOPE.
While this film is often held up by Fulci fans as among his, if not his best work, I hesitate to agree. Now, this is not to say I didn’t enjoy the film.
For instance, I really liked the creepy visual style, the gory special effects and the squelchy sound design, both of which are top-notch. I also absolutely adored the spooky musical score from Fabio Frizzi, even if it does become inappropriately funky at times. And I certainly didn’t mind when the film ditches its supernatural mystery and suddenly turns into a zombie film for its last ten minutes for no reason, (allegedly the zombie-filled climax was only thrown in by Fulci to keep his producers happy).
The slow pace though does leave the film dragging, particularly in the middle, with the story being spread rather thin. Often to the point where it feels like there doesn’t seem to be much going on.
Fulci also seems to be a bit too proud of his special effects team, with the camera lingering on many of the death scenes a tad longer than necessary, with one particularly nasty acid burn death lasting about 40000 years.
Overall, while not as fun as the more action-packed Zombie Flesh Eaters (Zombie vs Shark beats everything), The Beyond is still another effectively spooky blood-soaked chiller from Lucio Fulci.
Great effects, great cinematography, an eerie atmosphere and a kick-ass musical score all mix together to create an all-round enjoyable slice of 80s Italian horror. Check it out if you’re curious, and say a prayer for Joe the Plumber.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Graeme Robertson
