The Beyond

If you were to ask me what my personal favorite genre of movies is, I'd probably have to go with Horror, at least as I am currently writing this.  This probably isn't that much of a shock considering how much I like to bring the genre up in my previous reviews and the fact that I get so infuriated by the recent string of horror remakes.  (As an aside, I have recently seen that god awful remake posing as a prequel for John Carpenter's excellent version of "The Thing" and I almost reviewed that instead but all I could say was FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!  It's terrible plain and simple and I want people to know that they must avoid it like the plague.  Buy, yes BUY the John Carpenter version to show Universal Studios how ashamed they should be for green lighting that movie.)  On the subject of remakes, a thing that one might note about this string of them is that before it was american horror films from the 80's, it was remakes of foreign and specifically Japanese horror films.  I mention this because right in that time I was really starting to hit my main interest in horror and finding this out interested me in horror fodder from other countries, and thus I found the wondrous world of Euro-Horror.   Most of what I have watched is from England, with things like Hammer, and Italy, thus bringing us to today's movie, Lucio Fulchi's "The Beyond".

Fulchi didn't really make too many waves over here in the states until his film "Zombi 2" known here simply as "Zombie" an unofficial sequel to the European cut of George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" (Called "Zombi" in Europe hence why there isn't a "Zombi" 1 as pretty much all the home media for "Dawn" has simply kept the title.)  Jumping on the success he had there he very quickly became a horror guy through and through with titles like "City of the Living Dead" and "The Beyond".

"The Beyond" is actually my favorite piece of Fulchi's work, but it has taken me forever to track down a copy for my home collection.  Upon my first viewing of the film I immediately went out to get it, but the anchor bay edition I wanted had gone out of print, and all the remaining copies were far too expensive for my poor high school self.  Now, thanks to the grace of someone not knowing what they had, I picked up a copy for a steal at my local haunt for used DVD's and thus this review is born.

So, plot!  A woman buys a hotel in in Louisiana to renovate and re-open, not aware that it's actually built over one of the seven gateways into hell and when the wall blocking the gate way is torn down, well, really bad stuff happens.  It's odd that I pick this as my favorite out of Fulchi's work because the movie is kind of a mess.  The script likes to meander around with no real rhyme or reason, featuring a lot of horror set pieces that, while well done and creepy, don't really seem to be there for any good reason.

It feels weird and at times disjointed, not helped by the age old problem that many Italian horror films featured both American and Italian actors speaking English, but several of the Italian actors were re-dubbed due to not actually knowing English that well or to speaking it with a thick accent, the effect of this just really brings you out of the movie but strangely, this movie just works for me.  It's just drips creepy mood and atmosphere, not to mention its just terrifying imagery.

In the scheme of things, "The Beyond" is basically Fulchi doing another movie about the living dead, and as far as zombie fare goes, it's solid.  The dead get up and shamble about, people can't kill them without destroying the head, etc.  It sports some pretty well done zombie make ups and the gore effects that come with that territory are well executed and impressive.  The only real flaw is the story and pacing.  It's clear fulchi was all about the set pieces and because of that, the story gets to hang with several scene that consist of clunky exposition and a few moments that really feel like they're in their to pad the run time.  I mean, I've crucified other movies for this kind of problem mercilessly and yet I really like this one.  Why is that?  

Well, while it has flaws that I could understand some people being unable to overlook, it has numerous set pieces that I really dig, but acknowledge just come out of nowhere sometimes.  Like the film's infamous spider sequence.  It's really well done, but it brings the movie to a screeching halt saying "Look!  Creepy spiders!".  It's a well built scene that is genuinely weird and creepy, not to mention has a well done pace in it's own right.  I really can't fully explain what it is about this movie that just does it for me other than the way it looks and it's amazingly good climax.  It's just a moody flick, with some real interesting horror scenes and while it's technical failings are rather large when you think about it, I just can't help it.  This movie, for me at least, really works and I highly recommend it.  Hey, what do you have to lose?  I can promise you won't see anything quite like it coming out in the near future.

3 out of 5.