The Beyond

Lucio Fulci.

Fulci is one of my favorites for sure. His films are cinematic nightmares that unfold like fever dreams. THE BEYOND is one of the strange ones for sure. So many strange goings on.

A women inherits a hotel in Louisiana and tries to fix it up so that she can get back on her feet financially. A strange crew of characters come with the house  - old workers that come with the inheritance in a way. Everything is going fine...until a series of accidents starts taking people out one by one. Oh, and there is also the evil spirit buried in the hotel walls. That always puts a damper on schedules when you're trying to open a hotel . heh

Fulci loves his body horrors and this film has many of them. There are spider attacks, acid deaths, dog attacks, zombie attacks and the must have Fulci eye injuries as well. It's classic, gore filled, Italian horror, but there is something else to it as well. The Beyond is a story of hell and opening a gate to it. Once you see into it, you are cursed. It's a dark tale for sure and it's filled with iconic horror scenes with blind spirits, zombies and gore spraying EVERYWHERE. This should be on every horror lover's view list.

And that nightmare quality shines through in The Beyond. There are things that happen that really do seem like they are right out of a nightmare. Things in the dark that are reaching for you and clawing at you. The stuff that keeps people up at night. Fulci is a master of bringing every bit of that dread and fear to the screen. It's nasty stuff. I love it. :) However, it lacks the same edge as some of Argento's work.  It just doesn't seem as mean and targeted. I'm not sure why. It just seems like bad things are happening to anyone and everyone around the scene - male or female or child or animal. It's just going to get you and it doesn't care who you are, where as Argento films seem to target females far more than males.

The Beyond part of a trilogy of terror that Fulci has going on as pointed out by the HYPNOBOBS podcast ZOMBI ZOMBI PART III. (It's a must hear for zombie lovers) The trilogy of hell consists of City of the Living Dead (1980), The Beyond (1981) and The House By The Cemetery (1981) and after listening to the podcast, I have to agree with the synopsis.t would make a fantastic triple bill!