The Beyond (1981)

Tagline: “Only Death awaits…in The Beyond”

Duration: 87 minutes

Film Quality: 4/5
Gore Content: 4.5/5
Entertainment Value:4/5
Originality: 4/5

Introduction

Having gained something of a reputation for his zombie movies after the success of ‘Zombie Flesh Eaters’ and ‘City of the Living Dead’, Lucio Fulci decided to follow up his adaptation of Poe’s ‘The Black Cat’ with the second part of what would become known as the ‘Gates of Hell’ trilogy. Moving away from the cannibalistic nature of his Caribbean zombies, and Lovecraftian undertones of Dunwich, he goes for surrealism in what many consider to be Fulci’s best film.

In a nutshell

Whilst renovating an old hotel, a couple inadvertently open one of the seven doors of hell to unleash a crazy and highly gruesome series of events. But can they close the door before they open the hotel?

So what’s good about it?

‘Zombie Flesh Eaters’ took the zombie back to its voodoo inspired roots, ‘City of the Living Dead’ was atmospheric and very serious, ‘The Beyond’ is just insane! Fulci has frequently, sometimes unfairly been compared unfavourably to Dario Argento but this could so easily have been part of ‘The Three Mothers’ trilogy with its dreamlike quality, completely baffling series of events and almost total lack of cause and effect. For me it’s all the better for it and as Fulci himself once said, the criticism of its lack of coherence misses the point, intending it to serve as a collection of images. It works perfectly on this level, moving from set piece to set piece in true Grand Guignol fashion.

This would be a choice moment to talk about Gianetto de Rossi’s gore effects which are astounding at times. He clearly has a thing for removing eyeballs (left) which happens on more than one occasion but it’s the sheer relish with which the blood flows. From the opening scene where a warlock is slashed with a chain, pinned to the wall with rusty nails through the arm before having acid poured over his face (a trick repeated later in the film) it barely lets up. Coming way before CGI and clearly on a low budget, an estimated £300,000, the gore effects are expertly done and placed front and centre in glorious close up and in broad daylight which shows the faith and conviction Fulci had in de Rossi’s undoubted ability.

The movie is beautifully filmed and highly stylised, once again the opening sequence sets the tone with Fulci choosing to present it in Sepia tones (right) with a stand out being the staggeringly eerie scene where the corpse of Joe the Plumber rises out of the bath, some incredible make up effects there. There’s a wonderful eeriness about the shots outside the hotel that change from an innocuous sunshine during the early scenes,  changing to a persistent mist that invades the house on occasion. This is most notable when the blind character, Emily, runs out of the hotel after starting to bleed inexplicably from her hands. One of my favourite scenes is early on when Liza encounters Emily on a road that doesn’t seem to lead anywhere, stretching out towards the horizon with water on both sides. Apparently that is a real bridge but what an incredible effect it has on the film. What is Emily doing there? How did she get there? More importantly, what does she have to do with the hotel and what does she know about it?

Perhaps the most impressive thing about the film is just how unpredictable it is. It sprints from scene to scene with very little foreshadowing…there is absolutely no sign of zombies, they just suddenly appear behind the door, the tarantula attack comes out of nowhere and is never eplained, the reappearance of the warlock to Liza in the hotel room and an ending that is surely the bleakest of all of Fulci’s films. But the biggest surprise of all is that it’s not really a zombie film, despite its reputation suggesting otherwise, and like ‘House by the Cemetery’ functions best as a haunted house movie. The zombies are almost inconsequential and, other than Joe, not responsible for the carnage on show. Their sole function is seemingly to drive Liza and John to hell, or purgatory perhaps?

Would the real spider please step forward?

What about the bad?

There’s the terrible dubbing, suspect, over the top acting and overdone sound effects that seem to affect most Italian horror films, but the spider attack really stands out! Some of the spiders are real but it’s equally clear that some, well, aren’t! In a film full of colourful, inventive and gruesome effects, this scene, presumably an attempt to recreate the memorable shark attack from ‘Zombie Flesh Eaters’ falls a little flat. The one saving grace of the scene is that it has another truly wonderful eye gouging…by spider!!!

A special shout out to the worst doctor in the history of cinema…who hooks up a long dead corpse to a heart monitor and expects to see a response!!! Fulci playing a little joke with our expectations perhaps???

Any themes?

Eyes, sight and lack thereof! There are at least three gory eye gougings and two characters are presented without sight, one of whom meets the dangerous end of a gun whilst the other meets the toothy end of her own guide dog. These character, much like the film itself, have no literal view of the outside world, incapable either by circumstance or design of acknowledging reality but being forced to look inwards.

Every turn Liza and John take seems to result in a return to the hotel and, more specifically, its basement. This is made explicit in the final scens where John and Liza escape the zombies in the hospital and run down the stairs to find themselves in the hotel basement despite never leaving the hospital. This places the film very firmly in the dream world, just like ‘Inferno’ and ‘Suspiria’ where the world around conspires to shift geographically, ensuring you arrive at a certain place without rhyme or reason. The final image (above, left) takes this point to its extreme with our survivors blind and trapped in a singular spot from which there is no escape, their own personal hell.

Release History

Yes, this was seriously underappreciated by the BBFC who insisted on substantial cuts, including the gunshot to the little girl’s head (right), two eye gougings and the gruesome prologue. The dog attack was shorn of almost half a minute of its violence but the censors had a particular problem with the unconvincing spider attack, removing 43 seconds! A total of 1m 39s was sliced for the cinema version which then found itself on the banned list when released by Vampix in 1982.

However, it’s NOT considered one of the DPP 39 and was re-released in the same cut version by Elephant in 1987 on VHS and then once again, in the same truncated version by VIPCO in 1992. VIPCO finally grew a pair and submitted an uncut version in 2002 which was passed and has seen several further releases before Arrow got their beautiful little mitts on it to bring out a wonderful edition in 2011 and even brought out a 'Gates of Hell’ boxed set with ‘House by the Cemetery’ and ‘City of the Living Dead’ on DVD only – though this was missing many of the special features from the 2 disc releases.

Cultural Impact

Widely regarded as one of Fulci’s best films this did the grindhouse circuit in the early 2010s, presented by Quentin Tarantino who introduced to it to a new audience that seemed to appreciate its unusual vibe and dreamlike atmosphere. For many in the US this was the first opportunity to see the film uncut as it had been heavily censored (even more so than in the UK) and retitled as ‘’The Seven Doors of Death’ with an uncut limited edition DVD released in the early 00s.

Like many of Fulci’s films, certainly in the US, he didn’t live long enough to see his films truly appreciated for what they are…wildly inventive, semi-surreal, dreamlike masterpieces. It’s great to see the film getting the audience it deserves on both sides of the pond and across the rest of Europe.

Final thoughts

Other than the first five minutes, there’s a real sense of fun running through this film, despite the blood and gore, with the film rocketing from scene to scene, barely giving us the chance to draw breath. Unlike ‘Zombie Flesh Eaters’ and ‘House by the Cemetery’ which are a little more exploitative (not necessarily a bad thing, they’re outstanding films in their own right), Fulci seems to be enjoying his filmmaking a little more. I really appreciated the fantastical atmosphere and, though he frequently plays second fiddle to Argento in the critical stakes, this holds its own against many of the meastro’s greats.

Memorable Quotes

Dr McCabe: “Trust me, I’m a Doctor.”

Emily: “We blind see things more clearly.”

Lyncher: “You ungodly warlock…because of you this hotel and this town will be cursed forever.”

You’ll like this if you enjoyed…

‘Inferno’, ‘City of the Living Dead’, ‘Demons’, ‘Night of the Demon’

Do you like my review? Please leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts.