VIDEO REVIEW: The Beyond

REVIEW: The Beyond

The Beyond
Director: Lucio Fulci
Year 1981

The Beyond is a morbidly delightful journey into a world that blurs the divisions between the realm of the living and the barren landscapes of Hell. Set in Louisiana, the films tells the story of a woman named Liza Merril who has recently inherited a rundown hotel that, through a sorted past, has opened up the very gates of Hell within its rotten structure. Strange occurrences and unexplained deaths begin happening at the hotel, propelling Liza into a surreal struggle for her very soul as she is plagued by glossy eyed beings as they spill out from the gates of hell.

What a lovely house of death.

This film is an absolute delight if your characteristic preferences for the perfect horror film run extremely gory and atmospherically rich. Taking a few pages from his previous works, Lucio Fulci mashes up some stark and worthwhile elements from his two horror efforts, Zombie and City of the Living Dead, to create a film that is so entrenched in its own lore and visual implications that it literally sucks the viewer into the story even if its logical integrity is a bit scatter brained.

The illogical and dream like potentness of the film is what makes it so memorable and different from the majority of horror movies of the era. During a time when slasher films were king and the formulaic plot of teen horror began a rampant all out attack on cinema goers, the italian maestro contrasted the norm and created films that went above and beyond the usual celluloid fare. While not the only director of the time to maneuver in this surreal like direction, Fulci's style was unprecedented and uncompromising as it boldly rejected convention while solidifying his place among the top of phantasmic horror cinema connoisseurs.

Don't mess with the MacColl!

Relying on haunting and disturbing images to portray the world that he has created within the film, Fulci demonstrates that he is the master when it comes to setting a tone that is overwhelmingly present and substantial, without being cumbersome. He basks in the surreal as he uses all of his locations for all they're worth. In this mind set, he is able to bring the abandoned hotel, which is the center piece of the story, to life and make that morbid architectural wonder a character in itself. It's a creepy place in general, but seen through the eyes of Fulci, it becomes a place of nightmares. In all honesty, you believe that this place is the opening of Hell and anything you see after the point of the hotel's introduction and back-story becomes believable and tangible within the confines of the film. Now that's atmospheric filmmaking at its finest.

How many fingers am I holding up?

The nightmare quality and credibility of the film world is not only highlighted by the locations and expert compositions by Fulci, but also from the subdued performances by the movie's key actors. Catriona MacColl plays the role of Liza, the newfound hotel owner who has just moved in to the literal hell hole of horrors. Being no stranger to Fulci's style having survived his previous film, City of the Living Dead, MacColl shines as the doomed heroine with a penchant for attracting the attention of the inhabitants from the world beyond. Both City of the Living Dead and Beyond are quite similar in tone, both relying heavily on building a cinematic universe drenched in mystic and haunting overtones.

Get out of the middle of the road you damned blind moron!

The films each feel as if we are viewing the events on screen through a warped lens of logic, never knowing what is real while conveying the notion of being stuck in a dream within a dream to perfection. MacColl's two roles are almost mirror images of each other and one could say that her character Mary Woodhouse of City of the Living Dead fame, was just experimental for her portrayal of Liza Merril. Each heroine must confront death in one way, shape, or form, resulting from an opening to Hell being ripped unto our world. I enjoyed both of her performances, but I'm always finding myself more drawn to her innocent and kind natured presentation of Liza Merril.

I've got a splitting headache.

Another unforgettable asset this film has is the mysterious presence of the ghost like Emily, played by the under-appreciated italian horror vet Cinzia Monreale. She has a cinematic aura in this film, that imbues the entire frame, commanding your attention. Her origins are unknown and her arrival in the film occurs in such an otherworldly way, that you're instantly intrigued and captivated by her simplicity. Even at such a base level of complexity, her character thwarts the confines of its primitive shackles and begins to unravel what comes to be an immensely lavish and supernatural premise.

Shout! Shout! Rip my throat out!

The character of Emily even has a moving moment in the film, where she is confronted by an awful truth. This emotional performance brings to light her origins and it is quite a shocker and unsettling to boot. In the scene, we come to realize that she has escaped the binding imprisonment of Hell or purgatory and is adamant in not returning when confronted by a group of ominous beings from the beyond. The scene is morbidly curious and inspiringly disturbing, quickly morphing into sheer terror as an unexpected turn of events savagely brings the character of Emily to her finale fate. Like most of Lucio Fulci's memorable moments in horror history, it's bloody and gruesome, never holding back from showing the viewer all the gory details. Though her role in the film is short lived, Cinzia Monreale brings a substantial dose of the surreal to her hauntingly disturbed character of Emily.

When this house is a rockin, don't come a knockin.

Emily's brutal death is just one of many gore effects that splash onto the screen in expressive detail. In the film's total runtime you'll come across some vivid portrayals of eye gouging, head explosions, tarantula bites, ripping flesh, and that's just to name a few. All of the effects are pulled off with that sleazy style of italian filmmaking that just works wonders for these types of movies. I absolutely love it.

There's something savage about this approach, that if viewed by someone outside of the sub-genre of horror films, would find quite offensive and unappealing. I've always found a certain kind of charm with the effects of this nature as they always seem to fit inside the cinematic worlds that Fulci creates. It is raw and powerful, even if not completely realistic and genuine. Combined with the atmosphere that Fulci embraces and wraps himself in, it is a match made in heaven for obscure horror fans. With The Beyond, we get to see the master of gore in one of his most pinnacle of a achievements.

Let sleeping corpses lie.

Just like his gore effects, Fulci's zombie makeup is right on par with the overall atmosphere of the film. They fit in the universe and gel along with everything else created for that world. Done in simplistic fashion, but wholly effective, the walking corpses of this film are similar in function to his previous zombie outings. I have to say, Fulci knows how to do zombies right. These creatures are slow lumbering shells of human beings, moving on instinct and void of any kind of rational thinking. They're believably dead and soulless beings and that's just the way I like them. The only downside of these zombies is that they aren't on the screen for a terribly long time, only making an appearance in the later moments of the film. It's a shame, but I'll take what I can get when the overall end result is this good looking and decrepit. Even if the lovable walking dead isn't visible for a good majority of the movie, we still feel their presence in every aspect of the story and that is a great accomplishment on Fulci's part.

Dr. John's got a problem solver and its name is revolver.

Closing out all of the elements that make this film such a masterpiece of surreal horror cinema is the haunting music provided by Lucio Fulci's right hand man, Fabio Frizzi. Having collaborated and composed an excellent catalogue of Fulci's films like Four of the Apocalypse, The Psychic, Zombie, City of the Living Dead, and Manhattan Baby, Frizzi gives an outstanding audible tension to The Beyond. The soundtrack runs a large gamut of spectral horrors from his unsettling tonal cues to his uproarious final ballad filled with operatic singing and heavy beats, this music infuses a sense of style that gives life to the outstanding visuals. It's hard to imagine how the film would come off if it didn't have Frizzi's imaginative compositions to accompany it, but thankfully that's an experience that none of us have to go through. Top notch soundtrack for a top notch film.

Faced! Scratch moded!

The Beyond is a masterpiece of horror cinema that really shows the power of Italian horror cinema at its epoch. Matched in scope and accomplishment with his other undead epic, Zombie, Lucio Fulci proves that both substance and style can coexist even at such highly atmospheric levels. The pulsating tension of the film and the foreboding nature of the entire piece is just outstanding, giving way to a movie that really has a life of its own.

With a story that's lost in obscurity and drenched in mysterious circumstances, The Beyond comes out the other side resulting in a film that truly is in a league of its own. Saturated in a haunting and dreamlike stupor, the film elects to throw you into a world that is like no other, where reality mixes with the real world and the difference between the living and the dead is blurred into obscurity. I highly recommend this film to anyone that is interested in diving in to the grotesque wonders of Lucio Fulci's demented mind and to anyone that wants to view a film that goes beyond the normal atmospheric presentation, opting for a surreal ride that asks you as the viewer to experience the film rather then just watch it.

5 out of 5 stars       An Italian Horror Masterpiece!

IMAGES: Revelations

Revelation [revəˈlā sh ən]

1.) a surprising and previously unknown fact, esp. one that is made known in a dramatic way.

2.) the divine or supernatural disclosure to humans of something relating to human existence or the world.

There are many moments in cinema that make us sit up and take notice, but there are specific instances when these spectacular happenings change into something else entirely. These are the revelation moments of cinema. The ones where either the main characters of the film or the audience themselves are presented with something that shatters the films very existence and turns their fictional world on its head. 

I've been thinking a lot about these moments and the films that comprise them and I thought it would be kind of interesting to show some of these inspirational occasions in the form of one single image. The films that I'm going to list are by far not the definitive example, but when scouring my library of films these were the ones that first came to mind.

Proceed with caution because this is a spoiler ridden mine field that reveals some pretty big plot points of the films involved. Keep that in mind and if you think of some great examples of mind altering revelations in cinema, feel free to comment. I know there are tons of instances like these in the film world, so I might have to continue the series as more come to mind. Enjoy.

EVIL DEAD 2 [1987]

Oh Evil Dead 2, how I love thee. This was always one of my favorite "what the hell" moments. The main character Ash, played by the legendary Bruce Campbell, goes through such turmoil and physical abuse throughout the whole movie as he battles one evil possessed deadite after another, that you think he would catch a break at the end of the flick. Nope, not happening. He gets sucked into a vortex and is then shit out into the medieval times, only to be praised as, "he who has come from the skies to deliver us from the terrors of the deadites." Talk about not catching a break.

At this moment, we realize that Ash was in fact the hero depicted in the Book of the Dead, who fought the evil in ancient times. The ending is perfect, because it gives us another layer of appreciation for Ash's plight by praising him as a hero, but dooming him to battle evil for literally all time. "Hail, Hail, Hail!"

ARMY OF DARKNESS [1992]

Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse for poor old Ash, director Sam Raimi comes up with another way to torture the unlucky bastard. This depressing moment is from the alternate ending of Army of Darkness, that was actually the real ending for anyone outside of the United States. It shows an aged Ash waking up in a real life nightmare of apocalyptic proportions. Having taken too much of the serum that was supposed to send him back to his own time, he has slept too long and wakes up in a future hell where everything has seemed to go shit.

Whether this is from the evil that was let loose from the Necronomicon or just the aftermath from World War 3, we don't really get the details, but I love the bleakness of it all. It would have been a perfect set up for a rather interesting sequel. I'd love to see our smart ass hero roam the futuristic wastelands, spewing off some harsh one liners, while at the same time dealing with a new throng of deadite masses.

THE BEYOND [1981]

Lucio Fulci brings us one of the most atmospheric horror flicks in genre history and one of the most surreal endings known to man. In The Beyond, our two main characters Liza and John, struggle to come to terms with what is happening to them. They've been experiencing what can only be described as a living nightmare throughout the entire run time of the film. As the story escalates, the dead begin coming to life, calling for them to passover from the world of the living to the world beyond.

In one of the most bizarre endings that I can recall, the two main characters stumble into a barren landscape that seems lost in some lifeless void of nothingness. They hastily search for an exit from this nightmare, but finally succumb to the awful truth that they are in fact the inhabitants of the world beyond our own. Who knows if they were already dead from the very start of the film, or if somewhere along the line the border between the world of the living and the world of the dead had been severed, we don't really know for sure. Either way it's just a fascinatingly weird story that provides a great moment and one hell of a creepy revelation.

THE DARK HOUR (LA HORA FRIA) [2006]

Now this might be a film that has crept by most cinema radars, so if you haven't seen The Dark Hour I'd stay clear of this short summary because this really is a doozy of a revelation. In a world that has gone to complete shit, a group of survivors struggle to stay alive in an abandoned complex that is constantly attacked by zombie like creatures and ghostly apparitions. They live out a miserable life that is slowly revealed to the audience in bits and pieces on how things had come to such a state.

The mixture of horror and science fiction elements is really quite awe inspiring and the crazy closing moments of the film is simply unbelievable in its out of left field sense. I really didn't see that one coming and I love the fact that it's just insanely unexpected. Other then showing you the image above, I'm not going to go into any more detail about the ending, because it really is something you need to experience yourself. I know there are tons of reviews that both love and hate the ending, so it really could go any way depending on your tastes. Either way I love it.

DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE [1994]

Say what? In one of the most puzzling conclusions to a film, Dellamorte Dellamore, also known as Cemetery Man, shows us the exciting world of a cemetery worker as he deals with the strange fact that once a corpse is buried in his cemetery, they don't stay buried for long. This unconventional zombie film is really out there in both concept and execution, that it really shouldn't surprise the viewer that the ending is anything but routine.

In the conclusion, both Francesco and Gnaghi come to a shocking realization that they are at the edge of their known universe, a universe that seems to be enclosed inside the glass encasing of a snow globe. Yeah, I said it was out there. Whether this is inside Francesco's mentally fractured mind or if this in fact the way his world works we're never given a definitive answer, but I love the ambiguity of it all. The film really is in a league of its own as it plays with the notion of blurring reality while mixing love, death, life, and hate into one beautiful and confusing concoction.

 FROM DUSK TILL DAWN [1996]

In one of Robert Rodriguez's most accomplished works, From Dusk Till Dawn brings an interesting mixture of genres to make a unique combo of horror goodness. The film follows the infamous Gecko brothers as they attempt to cross the border into Mexico, along with a kidnapped family. The premise is simple and straight forward, but once we hit the halfway mark, things get turned upside down. The film plunges into horror territory as the group makes a pit stop at a local bar, only to realize that it's a feeding ground for a coven of vampires.

The hellish event at hand is ingenious and inventive, but we're never shown the history of these vampires and how long they've been feeding on truckers. That is until the closing moments of the film when we are shown how deep this bloody frenzy has played out throughout the scope of time. It's actually a pretty simple revelation and one that could have been guessed upon earlier in the film, but to see that mayan temple protruding out the back of the Titty Twister, it's just curiously morbid and intriguing as all hell.

KNOWING [2009]

From genre-master Alex Proyas, creator of such dark films as The Crow and Dark City, comes a tale of impending apocalypse and the possible extinction of the human race. Nicholas Cage brings the crazy as he attempts to figure out a way for himself and his son to survive the literal cooking of the Earth. I actually really liked this polarizing film and thought that Proyas did an excellent job in portraying the doom of planet Earth and at the same time combining so many different genres into one film. He experiments with horror, mystery, drama, and science fiction elements to convey a tale that is in more ways then one, out of this world.

This only helps to establish the very science fiction heavy ending that boarders on fantasy. The conclusion is so out of this world that it actually is quite entertaining to let yourself go and have fun with it, allowing the unbelievable revelation that aliens can predict the demise of planet Earth and reseed the human race on a distant planet seem plausible. I just love the wonderful depictions of the alien planet that just scream fantasy and wonder.

MISSION TO MARS [2000]

Speaking of reseeding a planet, the revelation of Mission to Mars offers that very same explanation for the origins of life on planet Earth. It's a concept that is just so out there, yet so intriguing at the same time. The way that Brian De Palma unfolds the mystery of Mars unto both the unsuspecting astronauts and the audience, is so delicate and beautiful that it really gives some credit to the concept and solidity to the unfound notion.

The big reveal that happens inside the large structure, that functions much like a giant IMAX theater, is breathtaking. We are given a visual history of Mars' ancient inhabitants as they flee their dying planet while at the same time sending the essential DNA of their people down to planet Earth. It's conveyed in such splendor and succinct brilliance that I always get a kick out of watching it play out. It's just a shame that not too many people appreciate this film.

THE MIST [2007]

Talk about one of the most depressing endings ever. Every single person that you've rooted for in the movie decide to off themselves over their overwhelmingly bleak predicament only to show the audience that if they held on for just a couple more minute they could have been saved. It's a moment that just kicks the audience right in the nuts and that horrible pain really stays with the viewer long after the credits role.

The film is a masterpiece in my opinion, filled with so many great performances and wonderful special effects. The fact that we never truly see one of those large lumbering beasts until the closing moments of the film, really speaks volumes for Frank Darabont's sensibility and restraint as a director. To be able to hold back and provide such visually stimulating images in very small and gradual hand fed pieces is really quite an accomplishment. And to do this while at the same time ending the film on such a downer is really courageous on his part. I love Darabont for giving us the tough love treatment and I wish more directors showed that kind of bold and fearless disposition when rounding off their stories.  

PANDORUM [2009]

Pandorum really took me by surprise when I first saw it a year after its release. I didn't realize that it was as ambitious as it was or as sprawling in scope, nor did I expect the film would have such a rich and vivid history packed within its fast paced runtime. There really are so many things going on in this well conceived movie that it begs for repeated viewings. In an interesting moment of revelation, the crew escape the maddening confinements of the now ancient space ship only to find that they have crash landed at their destination and have been there for some time that its almost unimaginable.

I love the irony of this savage and entrapped world, that was so close yet so far from where they wanted to be. As generations succumbed to barbarianism inside their hull, forming into a twisted amalgam of human existence, salvation lie just outside their hard metallic casket. The very fact that the last hope for humankind went through such hell for nothing, gives the film a dark and overtly demented tone. I really can't get enough of the ending.

PLANET OF THE APES [1968]

Here's the grandaddy of them all and one of cinema's most iconic moments in revelation history. An astronaut named Taylor, played by Charlton Heston, comes to the horrifying realization that the ape planet that he has crash landed on and is now an inhabitant of is in fact the future Earth. Destroyed by man's lust for power and control, the planet is in ruins. Heston belts out those now famous lines, "You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!" His voice echoing out into eternity, condemning the people that brought the Earth to its knees and allowed for the rise of a race of apes to inherit the Earth. This bleak ending is just phenomenal and will probably go down as one of the most memorable endings in cinema history. All I have to say is, "It's a madhouse! A madhouse!

STRANDED [2001]

Stranded, is a little known film by first time filmmaker Maria Lidon and what a wonderful debut it is. This mysterious film is about a group of astronauts as they make a pioneer voyage to Mars. Once there they find that their return is easier said then done, making their primary focus to be surviving the harsh conditions of Mars' unforgiving climate and terrain.

Stranded is a calm and slow paced film, relying on its characters to convey the story and desperate situation that they all find themselves in. Using this gradual tempo to push the story along allows us to gather our wits along with the rest of the crew as they figure on a way off this cursed rock. In the concluding moments of the film, we're given some strikingly chilling realizations that these astronauts weren't the first beings to step foot on the planet and in fact a superior race might have actually inhabited its red rocked surface. The alien structure thats carved from the mountain walls is just mesmerizing in its functionality and the reveal at the end of the film that somehow makes life sustainable on Mars is quite magnificently eerie and hopeful. A great a rare flick.

THE THIRTEENTH FLOOR [1999]

Rounding out the list is the exceptional film, The Thirteenth Floor. Directed by Josef Rusnak, the film follows the lives of two virtual reality programmers as they stumble upon the realization that the world that they have created is more real then they intended. Pure brilliance unfolds as we're transported back and forth between worlds separated by both time and space, inherently mixing up the two and providing some exceptional moments in both revelation and self discovery.

One of the most compelling moments occur when Douglas Hall comes to the stark realization that he is in fact a creation of someone else. He comes to this earth shattering conclusion when he reaches the end of the world of his digitally created universe. It's probably one of the top most unsettling experiences that I've seen on film, watching a character come to the understanding that they are not real. The moment is disturbing and perfectly conveyed making you sympathize for the characters plight. The poor dumb bastard.

Well that rounds out my revelation moments in cinema and I'll try to think of some more great moments to add to another segment in the future.