The Beyond, a review by Danae Cassandra
The Beyond (...E tu vivrai nel terrore! L'aldilà)Year of Release: 1981
Directed By: Lucio Fulci
Starring: Catriona MacColl, David Warbeck, Cinzia Monreale
Genre: Horror
Overview:Lucio Fulci's masterpiece of face-chewing spider action, milky-eyed psychics, face-melting embalming fluid and rotted flesh-crazed zombies returns in all its blood-splattered, surreal and grossly disturbing glory for a new generation of horror kids!
If your new business venture is sited on the cursed gateway to the hell dimension of
The Beyond, then maybe it's time to move elsewhere but Liza (Catriona MacColl) is determined to make her New Orleans hotel work, until strange things start happening, people vanish and her waking thoughts are haunted by a ghostly blind woman who seems to hold the answers to the whole bizarre fever-dream. As reality breaks down and the plot explodes, Liza must journey far from everything she understands and descend in
The Beyond...
The Beyond is Fulci's Zombie masterwork as he assaults his audience with shock after head-spinning shock, all the while leading up to one of horror cinemas most heart-stopping finales.
The Beyond drives sane men mad and leads others to murder. Dare you step over to the other side?
My Thoughts:This was a really bizarre movie. The plot was super thin, and too much was never fully explained. I can make some inferences, and that might be what Fulci was wanting the viewer to do, but I would have liked more meat in the story. There was certainly time for it; the death scenes were drug out for the sake of the gore effects, especially the one where the spiders eat the guy's face. I had read this film was gory, and that's definitely true. I'm not necessarily against gore, but there was no need to linger on it the way this film does. The characters also really annoyed me. Eliza is another cowering, screaming, useless female character. Then there's John, who is a doctor and therefore supposedly smart, yet can't seem to grasp that shooting the zombie in the head kills it and nothing else does.
At the same time, there are some gorgeously artistic shots in the film, especially the ending sequence, that are almost worth sitting through this film again. Almost.
I suppose this isn't a film for me, and I doubt I'll watch any of Fulci's other films. I don't mind surrealism, or a sparse plot, but I do mind when things are just dropped in and then never followed up on. Especially when there was lots and lots of time for lingering over the blood, wounds, and eye-gouging. I don't know who to recommend this to, but apparently it's considered a classic and lots of people do like it, so your millage might vary.
Bechdel Test: Pass
Overall: 2.5/5
2015 Horror Movie Count: 16
(From Horror/Halloween Marathon 2015 on November 2nd, 2015)
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May 17, 2024, 11:54:56 PM
