The Beyond

Production: Fabrizio De Angelis (Producer)

Screenplay: Giorgio Mariuzzo (Screenplay) — Lucio Fulci (Screenplay) — Dardano Sacchetti (Screenplay)

Music: Fabio Frizzi (Original Music Composer)

Cinematography: Sergio Salvati (Director of Photography)

A young girl tries to restore a semi-destroyed hotel she has inherited. But the hotel is built on one of the seven gates of hell, and the forces of evil begin to unleash... Considered by many to be the masterpiece of the "poet of the macabre" Fulci, it is certainly one of the best horror films by the director, although somewhat overrated. Excellent special effects and splatter scenes, the acting is unusually good (the actress "favorite" of Fulci, Catherine McColl, is once again the protagonist of the film), the film has the flaw of having a sometimes confusing plot and an ending a bit too enigmatic, almost hermetic. Of course, anyone who loves horror cannot but be fascinated by the visionary ability of the director, by the catalog of atrocities staged and by the perfect special effects, once again by Gianetto De Rossi. Curiosity: the original screenplay of the film did not at all foresee that zombies would be part of the story. The German financiers of the film demanded that Fulci include them, almost by force, given the enormous success that the zombie subgenre had at the time; so, with the help of screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti, the "poor" Fulci tried, as best he could, to insert some scenes involving the appearance of the undead. Given the little time and the scarce resources available, it can be said that better could not be done.

A New York woman inherits a cursed house outside of New Orleans

This is southern gothic horror and the second in Lucio Fulci’s unofficial ‘gateways to hell’ trilogy, which all center around a portal to the underworld and include actress Catriona MacColl in three different roles (credited as Katherine MacColl). The first film was “City of the Living Dead” from the year prior, and the third one is “The House by the Cemetery,” which came out later the same year. They’re all self-contained.

The gateway to hell in the basement element was ripped off from “The Amityville Horror” from two years earlier and “The Beyond” doesn’t hold up by comparison. “The Amityville Horror” was a huge hit for good reason. It took the time to develop several characters, and I don’t mean just the family members. Moreover, it has a warm heart and there’s light underneath the darkness.

This one’s more surreal and uglier, naturally similar to Fulci’s previous “Zombie” and the aforementioned “City of the Living Dead.” His curious trademark of punctured eye sockets is on full display. Catriona MacColl has a face that’s easy on the eyes, but don’t expect anything more on the beauty front. In the masculine department, David Warbeck costars as the doctor or mortician. He brings to mind Roger Moore in the ’70s and was actually considered for the role of 007 before Moore took it. Even then, he signed a hush-hush contract to replace Roger at a moment’s notice if he quit or proved troublesome.

I liked the artistic rural creepiness reminiscent of “The Shuttered Room” but, again, it suffers by comparison. Twenty-four years later “The Skeleton Key” took the same milieu, minus the portal to hell, and made a better film. Don’t get me wrong, there are some highlights in this flick, which make it worthwhile to fans of southern gothic horror, not to mention devotees of Fulci, many of whom tend to gush over it.

It runs 1h 27m and shot from Oct-Dec 1980 in New Orleans and north of there, across Lake Pontchartrain in Madisonville, which is where the old boarding house is located. Meanwhile studio stuff was done in Rome. The causeway happens to be the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, which is the longest continuous bridge over water in the world (24 miles).

GRADE: C

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THE BEYOND