The Beyond (1981) User Reviews

Fulci's Masterpiece?

[gavin6942 · 8/10 · 10 April 2011]

A Louisiana hotel is discovered to be one of the seven gateways to hell. The other world does not wish the hotel opened, so a horde of zombies is unleashed on the town. Also, there is a character named Joe the Plumber.

Starring the lovely and talented Catriona MacColl, directed by Lucio Fulci and written by Dardano Sacchetti... who has a virtual monopoly on Italian horror. This is a great cast and crew.

Howard Maxford says the film's "occasional visual flair may commend it to Fulci completists." I was under the impression this was considered one of Fulci's stronger films, but his comment makes me wonder.

Indeed, the visuals are Fulcis' strong point. An eye getting torn out, a crucifixion, eye piercing, shards of glass, tarantulas, acid... he does the best gore one can expect from a low budget film. (Thank you, effects wizard Giannetto de Rossi.) Luca Palmerini, who calls the film "first rate", claims there are many references to classic Italian horror, the films of Tobe Hooper and Winner, and the literature of Graegorius and Sidney. These were clearly over my head, but only add to the greatness of the film.

My horror idol Jon Kitley sums it up best: "Fulci isn't interested in a coherent storyline, with all the loose ends tidied up at the end of 90 minutes. He is more concerned with creating a series of sequences meant to scare you. Horrify you. And hopefully, even gross you out." This fits Fulci perfectly, but also is not a bad way to describe Italian horror in general. (Fulci freely admits the film has "no logic" and is "plotless".) I love the smile Catriona MacColl flashes as David Warbeck tries to put a bullet in the front of a pistol while in the elevator. Clearly, anyone who knows how to use a gun would not load it this way. But also, Fulci could have cut the film a second earlier and avoided the momentary smile that appears in an otherwise tense and terrifying scene.

Any die-hard horror fan or fan of Italian horror must see this film. It is a true classic, regardless of the fact it may be overlooked by some horror historians (Italian horror has always taken a backseat to American or British horror, and even among Italian films, Fulci takes a backseat to Argento.) Check this one out.

In the Afterlife....

[suspiria10 · 8/10 · 22 September 2003]

The Beyond is one of Fulci's best films. The film takes place in modern day Louisiana as a woman oversees the the renevation of an hotel that she inherits. Strange and gory things start to happen and poof the hotel just happens to be over one of the 7 doors to hell. Very bloody with a slightly incoherent plot the film is a lot of fun and I suspect that no Fulci fan should be without their copy. Visually I think this is Fulci's best film (that I've seen) and the acting is what you'd expect. 7 / 10: FULCI LIVES

"Woe be unto him who opens one of the seven gateways to Hell, because through that gateway, evil will invade the world."

[bensonmum2 · 7/10 · 1 May 2005]

• Liza Merril (Catriona MacColl) takes possession of a hotel in Louisiana. She has plans to renovate the place. But a series of seemingly accidental deaths may put a stop to her plans. She's unaware that her hotel has a past. Many years ago, a warlock was lynched in the basement of the hotel. Before dying, he claimed that the hotel was one of the seven doorways to hell and that his death would lead to its opening. Is his prophecy coming true?

• I've never been the biggest fan of Lucio Fulci. Other than a couple of gialli, my experiences with his films have not left me with much of desire to see more (For example, I thought House by the Cemetery was terrible and I walked out of the theater during City of the Living Dead). So, I had never been in a rush to see The Beyond. While it has problems, The Beyond is much more enjoyable than a lot of Fulci's other work.

• Two things work for me in The Beyond - atmosphere and Catriona MacColl. When watching some of his other films, I came away with the impression that Fulci wasn't patient enough to allow atmosphere to build. He always seemed to be in a rush to get to the money shot. The hotel in this movie is filled with a good amount of atmosphere. There is a sense of dread hanging over the place. You can especially feel it when the characters venture into the basement. It's all but palatable.

• As for MacColl, through her acting she's able to pull together the barest of story lines and create a character I could care about. It's difficult to enjoy a horror movie when you don't care about the characters. A little more insight into the MacColl's character would have been very welcome.

• As I stated previously, the movie is not without problems. The biggest is the plot. It's all but non-existent. The actual why's and how's of the doorway to hell opening are never really explored. We only see some of the aftermath. We know that the doorway to hell is in the basement of the hotel, then why does half of the movie take place at a hospital? Furthermore, the weak plot does not allow the characters to be fleshed out as much as I would have liked. I knew so little about most of the characters that I really didn't care what happened to them. The plot seems to matter little to Fulci as its main function is to string together a series of gristly set pieces. And that's always been my biggest complaint about Fulci - he throws tons of gore into his movies, not to advance the storyline, but for the sake of showing gore. Gore does not necessarily equal horror. I'll use the spider attack scene from The Beyond as an example. While I'll say that it certainly was gross and very nicely done,but it's not scary because it happens out of the blue to a character I know nothing about. Gore does not bother as long as it is presented within the context of the story.

• Overall, my experience with The Beyond has made me rethink some of my thoughts of Fulci. I may need to see some of his other films that I've been putting off.

"Woe Be Unto Him Who Opens One Of The Seven Gateways To Hell!"...

[azathothpwiggins · 24 February 2020]

Director Lucio Fulci's THE BEYOND opens with a flashback to 1927 Louisiana, where townsfolk take the law into their own hands, killing a man in hideous, grisly fashion. This is also when we are told of the seven gates of hell.

Fast forward to 1981, and Liza Merrill (Catriona MacColl) has inherited the very same hotel where the aforementioned death occurred. Within seconds, unfortunate "accidents" begin to take place. Liza just wants to fix the place up, unaware that occult terror and unspeakable doom await!

Another entry in Fulci's wonderful horror cycle, this is one dreadfully dreary, flesh-crawler of a movie! In spite of ridiculous dubbing, goofy characters, and the infamously questionable "tarantula scene" (Why mix fake spiders in with real ones?), the Director somehow manages to keep it so utterly bleak, that all is forgiven! Ms. MacColl is even better here than she was in CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD! David Warbeck is also good as the dauntless Dr. John McCabe. Of course, stealing the show is Cinzia Monreale as the enigmatic, blind, yet supernaturally sighted, Emily. Her intro is unforgettable!

Obviously, a zombie uprising is in the cards, and these are some memorable, shambling dead! There are several classic set pieces, showing Fulci at his finest. Gorehounds will be in ecstatic bliss, since Fulci pours on the gore by the bathtub-full!

EXTRA POINTS FOR: The devastating denouement that drains us of all remaining hope!

P.S.- For added enjoyment, count how many times you have to yell at Dr. McCabe to "Stop wasting bullets and aim for the head!"...

Lucio Fulci's main great success is compelling directed with startling gory visual content

[ma-cortes · 6/10 · 12 July 2010]

This is a creepy horror film plenty of brutal images and gory events . A New Yorker heir ( Katriona MacColl, Fulci's ordinary ) moves an old mansion-hotel in Louisiana and she wishes restore it . She investigates the weird deeds happened in a room and by basement of the old motel that is built on top of the door to the beyond. Bloody and purulent specters roam there. She is confronted with rare happenings as a worker has a lethal fall, the plumber is cruelly murdered and her blind friend is bitten by a dog that breaks his neck. When she escapes to the hospital along with friendly doctor McCabe ( David Wabeck ) she doesn't know what a new horror is waiting there . Early rare deeds begin to happen to them, as they start hearing noises, rare characters and tragic killings. Quote from the book of Eibon: "And you will face the sea of darkness, and all therein may be explored¨.

Chilling Italian terror flick full of screams, chills, thrills and lots of blood and guts. Gory, gruesome , pretty repellent , and ghastly gore feast in which the stumbling stiff dead are reanimated and committing astonishing murders . This is a classic excruciatingly splatter film in which the intrigue,tension, suspense appears threatening and lurking in every room, corridors , cellar , hospital , morgue and many other places . This unrelenting shock-feast packs good make-up and special effects make-up by the maestro Gianetto De Rossi. Produced on a tight budget by Fabrizio De Angelis , Fulci's usual producer and occasionally director. Eerie musical score composed and conducted by Fabio Frizzi . Usual secondary actors as Veronica Lazar , Al Cliver and of course special appearance of Lucio Fulci as librarian clerk . This genuinely frightening story with correct utilization of images-shock is well photographed by Sergio Salvati on location in Louisiana and Italy . The motion picture is realized by one of the most controversial filmmakers of terror movies ,Lucio Fulci in his usual style with flaws and gaps but is professionally made because he is a skilled craftsman . He creates a strange horror thriller that manages to be both scary and skilfully made, deserving its cult status . Reviewers are divided over booth the morals and talents of Fulci (1927-1996) who sometimes directed under the alias ¨Louis Fuller¨. For some critics many of his movies are cruel and shockingly violent, yet their gory surface often conceals religious, social commentaries or intelligent issues. Whether he should be viewed as a cheap sensationalist or just a genius Fulci has a loyal fan base and undeniably has an important and unique influence on the terror genre , creating great works on a low budget such as proved in ¨ The black cat ¨, ¨Manhattan baby¨, ¨Gates of Hell¨, ¨Island of the living dead¨, ¨New York ripper¨ , among them. this is one more imaginative horror pictures in which the camera stalks in sinister style . It's just one long unrelenting guts-feast and passable budget horror movie that still packs a punch for those who like to be terrorized out their wits . This gore-feast that tried to disguised itself under many other titles will appeal to Lucio Fulci aficionados.

Fulci's Masterpiece of Pure Imagery

[eibon09 · 10/10 · 27 December 2000]

L'Aldila/The Beyond(1981) is the film that brought interest in the cinema of Lucio Fulci. I became a big fan of his work after watching this movie. Have seen a good portion of his films since. The opening prologue is shot in a gorgeous sepia color. The murder/torture of Schweick represents the censorship and repression of the artist. Anchor Bay did a excellent job in the restoration of the film for DVD.

The chain whipping scene in it is a repeat of the one in Don't Torture a Duckling(1972). The chain whipping in The Beyond is much more gory. There are a couple of reasons why the chain whipping scene in Don't Torture a Duckling is more powerful and potent then in The Beyond. The scenes take place in natural settings. Goes for violent realism. The death of Maciara is depressing to watch.

L'Aldila(1981) was part of a trilogy called the 7 gates trilogy. This started with The Gates of Hell(1980), continued with this film, and was to end with The Beyond 2. Unfortunately, this trilogy would never be completed. This is a shame because I would have loved to see that film to know if it was good as the first two movies of the trilogy. The original intentions of The Beyond are different from the final results. This was because of budget and time restrictions. I wonder how much better the pic might have been with a modest budget and a little more time.

The make up effects is one of the film's best features. Despite the low budget, Giannetto De Rossi's effects are spectacular. The effects are done with flair and pizazz. Giannetto De Rossi did his best when working with Fulci. The effects for the death of Joe the Plumber are very good. The best effects in the film is the scene involving the young girl near the end.

The cinematography is spliced with atmosphere and style. Sergio Salvalti contributes to the film's gothic flavour. The cinematography contains a dreamish flow that makes the film beautiful. The score is one of my favourites for a horror film. The score fits perfectly with the scenes in the film. As good as anything done for Argento by Goblin.



The Beyond(1981) is an 'Absolute Film' where image and sound are the most important part of a film. On the making of this, Fulci once said, ("My idea was to make an absolute film, with all the horrors of the world. Its a plotless film, there's no logic to it, just a succession of images"). This is something that people who hate the film don't and will never understand. Many people do not like this because of its nonlinear structure. He also said, "In Italy we make films based on pure themes, without a plot and The Beyond like Inferno refuses conventions...people who blame the The Beyond for its lack of story don't understand that it's a film of images, which must be received without any reflection". Receiving a movie like this without any reflection is a hard thing for many film goers to do.

The works of Antonin Artoud and H.P Lovecraft play a major influence on The Beyond(1981). Fulci was inspired by this controversial French artist. The ideas of Artoud are present in most of Fulci's work. Schweick the painter bears a little resemblence to Antonin Artoud. Artoud was the founder of "The Theater of Cruelty" which talked to "Restore to the theater a passionate and convulsive conception of life, and it is in this sense of violent rigor and extreme condensation of scenic elements that the cruelty on which it is based on must be understood". This idea can be applied to The Cinema and this film.

The comment "Violence is Italian Art" by Fulci is relative to the movie and the history of Italian art. Its one of the few films where atmosphere and gore mix well together. Has good moments of spirital horror. The atmosphere is eerie and terrifying. The gory set pieces are satisfying. The surreal atmosphere and bloody imagery is what makes the film a classic.

The Beyond would influence many later American and Italian horror flicks. One, The Evil Dead(1983). Two, Hellraiser(1987). Three, Hellbound:Hellraiser 2(1988). Four, The Church(1990). Finally, Dellamorte Dellamore(1996).

The Beyond(1981) will never be a mainstream favourite because its not for everyone. The themes are well written by Dardano Sacchetti. Catriona MacColl and David Warbeck are very good in the roles of the heroine and hero. Veronica Lazar from Inferno(1980) is sinister as Martha. The director did a great job with the little resources that he had to work with. The ending will haunt your dreams for days to come.

The Beyond

[Scarecrow-88 · 6/10 · 19 April 2007]

Silly, gory hokum from acclaimed gross-out maestro Lucio Fulci regarding a decrepit Louisiana hotel built on top of the seven doors to hell. In the opening of the film, villagers crucified an evil warlock named Schweick(Antoine Saint-John holing him behind a brick wall in the basement of the hotel. 50 years later, Liza(the lovely Catriona MacColl)inherits the hotel and decides renovations are in order. Her staff fall prey to supernatural evils when a plumber, inspecting leaky plumbing in the basement, knocks loose the wall holding Schweick at bay. With Schweick's rotted body set free all manners of grotesque violence occurs.

The plumber immediately gets his eyeball pulled out(Ouch!). The plumber's wife receives an acid face melting, Liza's hand discovers a blueprint to the hotel showing it's mysteries and in turn gets half his face ripped apart by tarantulas(!), several victims are possessed with white eyes confirming so, and..you guessed it..zombies rise from death to pursue Liza and a doctor friend named John(David Warbeck). The plumber even shoves the poor maid through a rusty nail with it knocking her eyeball out the other side. A specter named Emily(Cinzia Monreale)allowed to return from hell to warn Liza to depart from the hotel, informs her not to go into a specific room, once occupied by Schweick..and, you know what the idiot does? That's right Liza almost instantly makes her way into the warlock's room..sheesh. Oh, and John..he sure is a bright one. When the zombies are marching EVER SO SLOWLY towards him, he shoots a bevy of bullets riddling their torsos to no effect. Yet, when he shoots them in the heads they drop to the ground to harm no one anymore. But, does John realize this enough to aim for their heads every time? Nope. Even after he watches them drop with a bullet to the head, he STILL SHOOTS THEIR TORSOS! Emily gets perhaps the nastiest death when her trusty dog rips her throat out and ear clean off in gruesome, flesh-tearing, bloody fashion. Even a poor mortician gets shards of breaking window glass stabbed into his face and neck.

Should I go on? If what I've written above amuses you, then this Fulci gore-fest is up your alley. Abandon all hope for a clear story-line because the weird goings-on occur thanks to writing from this evil book called Eidon. The ending is particularly weird. Anyone familiar with special effects can clearly tell that the faces being torn apart are plaster casts of the actors.

Disappointing Lucio Fulci trash.

[Aussie Stud · 2/10 · 18 August 2003]

For years, I had heard so many good things about Lucio Fulci's "THE BEYOND" that I was simply ecstatic and overjoyed when I found an uncut copy on DVD during a recent visit to NYC.

After rushing back home to watch it, I was tortured (literally) with an hour of half of bad acting, bad special effects and an extremely confusing plot-line involving a stupid woman who unknowingly opens a gateway to Hell under the house she has just inherited. So far, this sounds like a comedy, but I assure you, you will be laughing for all of the wrong reasons!

While I don't exactly tune into a Lucio Fulci film for the 'acting', the work displayed in "THE BEYOND" is simply phenomenal. The movie starts off in the 1920s with some sort of angry town lynch mob who storm the house (pitchforks and torches in hand!) and bludgeon an artist to death, accusing him of cursing the town. They crucify him to the wall of the basement and throw lye on his face where we get to witness extremely bad scenes of a man throwing a bowl of porridge onto a man's face as it bubbles and melts.

Flash forward to the 'current day' where a woman has inherited the house, along with two inept house servants and a lot of bad luck. To start the day off on the wrong foot, a carpenter on scaffolding sees a blind girl through a window and 'falls off' before spitting up gallons of blood in slow-motion. We now meet a Doctor who I guess is supposed to be the 'hero' of the movie who examines the carpenter. He strikes up a friendship with the woman and together, the two begin to explore the mystery and history of the house.

Along the way, we have some truly ridiculous scenes and moments that are never fully-explained (and this is the UNCUT version!). For example, as always, Lucio Fulci delivers his gore and the first victim gets his face pulled off and one of his eyeballs popped out of its socket in the basement by a 'zombie hand' that thrusts out of a wall. The dead guy is discovered by the female house servant who also discovers another dead body that has apparently been there for many years.

Somehow, both bodies happen to get transported to a hospital in a matter of minutes so we can witness our first laughable mystery. The wife of the man that was killed pays a visit to the morgue. After dressing him up in his funeral suit, she suddenly starts screaming for no reason. We see a shot of a beaker full of acid toppling off a table on the other side of the room, and the next thing you know, the woman happens to be lying flat on her back, directly underneath the acid so we can capture the gratuitous shot of her face 'melting' away beneath it. Uh, right.

Next, the daughter comes into the room, only to be scared off by an extremely large volume of 'frothy' blood that edges across the floor, backing her into a room where she is greeted by a zombie.

We cut away again to the woman driving down a highway where a blind woman and her dog appears out of nowhere. The blind woman tells her to leave the house immediately. Further confusion ensues when the guy who was killed in the beginning of the movie starts to show up at various different locations to kill off the remainder of the cast. The female house servant gets her head impaled on a nail, where we get to see yet another infamous eyeball popping scene. A man, whose connection with the main characters are never fully explained, goes to the town library to seek out the original construction plans for the house, only to be 'surprised' by a flash of lightning that appears out of nowhere (and for no real reason) that sends him crashing to the floor where he gets parts of his face bitten off by spiders.

Some laughable special effects take place in this very scene. The face all of a sudden turns into a 'wax-like' head, and only one of the spiders look real. The ones used in the background all look like one of those cheap plastic ones with pipe-cleaner legs that you once made in kindergarten. One of the spiders 'pull' one of the eyeballs out its socket and another stings the man's tongue. But the biggest bizarre moment does not involve the spiders, but instead we get to see the floor plans of the house 'disappear' like magic ink. What was the purpose of all of that? You're probably thinking that it will be explained at the end of the film. Wrong.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, the male house servant is killed (although I don't recall this ever happening). He appears in a strange seance appearance involving all the dead cast members to date where they surround the blind girl who gets her throat and ear ripped off by her pooch! Ouch! Another unintentionally funny scene shows the woman who got her face 'melted' off by the jar of acid. The make-up effects are hideous. She has enough red and blue make-up on her face to resemble that of a baboon.

More confusion ensues when the town suddenly 'empties' of all of its residents so that the woman and the Doctor are both running around with no one else in sight. They take refuge in the hospital (where else would there be any more freshly dead bodies?) where they encounter slow-moving zombies that the Doctor must insist on shooting a hundred times in the stomach. Even after he successfully slays a few by shooting them in the head, he still proceeds to cluelessly shoot them in the stomach. And all of these endless bullets are coming out of a six-chamber barrel that he never refills! LOL!

There is of course, one surviving man who is hiding in one of the rooms. He is only there to show us why the Doctor would shoot at a glass door for no reason so a mysterious gust of wind would blow shards of glass into the room and pierce a 'wax-like' head, killing the man instantly.

With a mob of zombies (actually, upon closer examination, it looks like it's the same group of six zombies who reappear continuously to make it look like that there are 'legions' of them) shuffling after the Doctor and the woman, they run down a stairwell and find themselves back in the basement of the house. Making their way through a hole in the wall, they find themselves wandering Hell for eternity. If you ever thought Hell would look like a dark wasteland with five bodies lying around, then you'll be pleased with this ending.

So all of the missing plot points that you thought would be finally answered in a clever finale, are never explained. We never find out why the woman could see the blind girl and where she lived, but the Doctor couldn't. We never find out how the creepy male house servant dies, or why he and the female servant 'came with the house'. We never find out why the missing floor plans 'disappeared' and for what reasons. That and many other unanswered plot holes left me feeling very angry for wasting my time, hope and money.

The gore was laughable if anything and there wasn't one scene that made me 'jump', even if it was the old scare tactic involving a hand on a shoulder during a tense moment. There was only one good scene and that was when the little girl got her head blown off. But other than that, this movie was very disappointing.

My Rating - 2 out of 10.

A true masterpiece from a legendary master of horror!

[efrain-2 · 10/10 · 17 January 2005]

A couple of years back (late 90's), I had the pleasure of experiencing Fulci's The Beyond the way it was meant to be watched...on the big screen at the Angelica Movie Theater in Soho (NYC) at midnight, in all of its uncut glory (thanks to Quentin Tarantino's Rolling Thunder Films).

For a couple of hours, I was taken aback to the greatest days of horror! It even had previous of movies like 2000 Maniacs, The Evil Dead and Zombie (aka Zombie 2) before the movie started. To truly appreciate this movie, one has to remember the era it came from. The post Exorcist and Dawn of the Dead period saw many imitations, especially from Italy. However, there were a handful of filmmakers that had actual imagination, skills and creativity to set their pictures apart from the rest. Of the bunch, Argento, Bava (father and son), and Fulci stood quite apart from the rest, each with their own talents.

Fulci was perhaps the most prolific of them, adding a flare of his own Art to his works. His movies each played like paint on canvas from beginning to end. The Beyond was his greatest Masterpiece, combining a better plot than most of his works, with the high quality level of gore Fulci was and always will be well known for.

The Beyond starts with a Warlock being executed in the 1930's by a lynch mob. Little do they know that the hotel where the act takes place happens to be one of the seven doorways to hell. Flashing forward about 50 years later, Liza inherets the hotel and decides to restore it. From there all hell breaks loose. The ending is as disturbing as it gets, and the deaths are both unique and horrifying (vintage Fulci).

I remember walking to the subway station that night, still thinking about what my eyes had just seen (occasionally looking over my shoulder) - realizing I had been genuinely scared and disturbed by a movie that at the time was about 17 years old. Man I miss the "Hey-Day" of horror, and the true masters of it!

Better on the second time around

[bowmanblue · 7/10 · 21 June 2014]

I guess I must have been in a bad mood when I first watched this as I really didn't like it. Now I've watched it again (simply because I'd forgotten I'd even watched it, I really enjoyed it - like I've done so with many (so-bad-they're-good) Italian horror films of the eighties. It's about a hotel in Louisiana which is basically a 'hell-mouth' and, seeing as Buffy probably wasn't born when this was made, it's up to a woman who wants to refurbish it and a doctor who can only shoot a zombie in the head every three shots (I counted!).

It's a bit weird where there are some secondary characters who just wander around talking badly. Yes, it's dubbed in many places - I noticed that severely when I first watched it and it's still as overly-dramatic now. In typical Italian horror movie style, it's almost deliberately all over the place and the sharp edits which give the film a truly disconcerting atmosphere. Plus there are some scenes which are almost funny while being bizarre - like when a woman seems to freak out because a beaker of water overturns in slow motion (and she then comes off worse, believe it or not).

And there's the gore - which was damn gool if you're into 'claret' and generally want to see a hundred and one different ways of inflicting pain on eyeballs. Back in the eighties (before every 'head-shot' was computer generated) film-makers had to come up with new and interesting ways of doing gore on the cheap. And, to be fair, that's one area where The Beyond succeeded. The gore wasn't just gore, but also pretty inventive, providing me with more than a few moments of on-screen horror that I've never seen before.

I'm glad I've given this film another go as - this time - I found it really entertaining and it's an example that you clearly need to be in the right mood for the right film.

Fulci: A (Very) Poor Man's Argento

[nycritic · 5/10 · 12 June 2005]

THE BEYOND is one of the later exercises in Giallo film-making that will more than likely cause two things in the viewer: uncontrollable laughter in many of the "gore sequences" and extreme irritation at the beyond (pun intended) awful handling of the dubbed lines into English as delivered not only by the predominantly Italian cast, but even by its two leads, Catriona MacCall and David Warbeck.

Which is a sad case, since in essence, the movie is a grandiose exercise in style over logic. There's the extremely effective opening sequence (detailing the cliché of the torch-wielding villagers out to get their social outcast, a painter who has delved a little too far into his own darkness and has opened a gate into Hell) which describes a tortuous crucifixion scene. Then there's the way Fulci has in introducing the character of Emily (who's also in the prologue reading a Satanic book called "Ebion," who's title seems to have Lovecraftian overtones) later on in the film -- first we see only her heavily cataract-ed eyes (in two flash cuts) through the point of view of a painter working on the hotel in which this story is based on; later in a truly masterful sequence full of white dread where Liza (Catriona MacCall) is driving on a brightly lit road in one endless shot; suddenly we see the car zoom towards a point in the distance, and this is Emily (Cinzia Monreale, credited as Sarah Keller), standing with her dog Dickie, clearly otherworldly and foreboding, a detail that causes Liza's steely composure to crack a little. (That Liza doesn't seem to question as to why a blind woman would be in the middle of an expanse of what seems to be the Ponchatrain bridge is one of the many plot holes in THE BEYOND) Emily's introduction into Liza is the best part of the movie. This aforementioned scene works so well because it's slow, deliberate, preceding a minor scare involving a painter seeing her through a window, and foretells so much quiet horror. That the story later takes a hard left into absolute nonsense is its downfall because no one seems to be acting with attention to logic and the hackneyed use of the "character who goes down into the cellar and asks 'Who's there? Is it you?'" has been done to the death and beyond (pun again intended), so feeling any sympathy for the leads is secondary. But this quiet moment of foreboding is actually the one time the movie uses the "ghost" to a tremendous effect: it's horror under the Sun.

Fulci was, with Mario Bava and Dario Argento, masters of gore. Gore in Fulci's films had barely anything to do with plot as much as convey a pornographic view of a horrific event. He definitely loves his extremes in gore and uses it in varying degrees of success. One of the most disgusting involves a 5 minute sequence where the hotel's architect falls from the top of a ladder (I kept thinking of DON'T LOOK NOW) and gets his face eaten by tarantulas (many of them clearly mechanical), and while the viewer knows that the face is almost a cheap rendering of the actor, it is cringe-inducing while bringing nothing to plot but padding to an already overlong movie. One wonders what he was trying to tell here, but Stephen King once said in an interview, "it all else fails, I will resort to gross-out" to get the horror across.

So, with all this said, is THE BEYOND a good movie or a terrible one? Well, that depends. There have been noted critics who have wished this movie swam in its own quicklime and disappeared from the face of the Earth. There are others who think this is the Real Deal when it comes to gorgeous gore. I'm in the middle. (Then again, I'm just someone who loves movies, good and bad.) Stylistically, it owes a lot to Dario Argento. Plot-wise, there is an idea, but it goes completely nowhere with it. Characerization is all but non-existent and to have several of them just appear for no other reason to have them later on be another statistic in the high body count this kind of movie has is lame. The dialog is cringe-inducing for an entirely different reason: it's the equivalent of listening to fingernails scraping over a blackboard or a fork's screeching over the surface of a bathtub. I'll leave it to the viewer because there were times when I was engrossed (as in the Liza-meets-Emily sequence), but there were one too many times when I was just stumped to see gratuitous gore and actors badly playing zombies for the sole factor to have this as a link to George Romero movies.

And if anything, if watching the movie becomes too cumbersome, just switch on the Audio Commentary by Catriona MacCall and David Warbuck. Both, especially Warbuck, have some side-splitting views on their experiences in this film.

Mondo "Beyond"-o....

[Mister-6 · 10/10 · 29 August 2002]

May I introduce you to one of the most flat-out insane Italian horror/gore movies to come down the pike. For sheer audacity, this one has no equals (or at least darn few).

"E tu vivrai nel terrore - L'aldila" (or "The Beyond", as I fondly remember) is the beguilingly simple story of a cute little hotel in the deep South (Southern Louisiana, that is; NOT Southern Italy!) whose basement has an inconvenient little doorway to hell where undead warlocks, zombies, tarantulas and other creepy crawlies lurk to entomb man in darkness, death, despair and other such "D" words.

I tell you, almost wall-to-wall gore FX permeate this film and the blood-drenched sensibilities of director Lucio Fulci make every scene a nail-biter, gut-wrencher, heart-stopper and probably will involve sundry other parts of your body, as well.

Actors MacColl and Warbeck do their stalwart best fighting the undead and let's face it: if you've seen the very end of this film, can you seriously be scared by anything else in life?

Take my advice, kids: rent this movie, buy this movie, do anything you must to get a hold of this film. If you love blood, guts and quicklime, get "E tu vivrai nel terrore - L'aldila" NOW!

Ten blood-soaked stars for this beauty.

And remember: DO NOT ENTRY.

To All The Ghosthunters Out There - I Double Dare You To Stay At This Hotel.

[P3n-E-W1s3 · 7/10 · 30 June 2022]

Greetings And Salutations, and welcome to my review of The Beyond; here's the breakdown of my ratings:

Story: 1.25 Direction: 1.50 Pace: 1.50 Acting: 1.25 Enjoyment: 1.25

TOTAL: 6.75 out of 10.00

Lucio Fulci steps grandly into the Haunted House sub-genre with the Beyond - And knocks it out of the park. What I admire most about Fulci is his unwillingness to hold back. If you're going to do something, then do it with panache. Though the plotline isn't too complex, it doesn't deter Fulci from inventively getting carried away, especially with the movie's finale.

The writers give us the tale of Liza Merril, who inherited an old Louisianna hotel. Unbeknown to her, the house has a dark past and blacker secrets. A painter renting one of the rooms taps into the hotel's corruptness, exhibiting itself via his artwork. Frightened, the townsfolk storm the artist's room and liquidate him in an unequivocally nasty fashion. They nail his crucified form in the building's basement. And in doing so, they allow the evil to ooze out into the world. Now Liza's having the old place renovated and preparing it to reopen the wickedness finds it has new toys with which to play. Anybody setting foot near the hotel had better beware. The writers give the audience a delicious taste of the macabre. They fill the narrative with credible characters, some of which are bizarre and some mysterious. They sprinkle in liberal amounts of passages from an enigmatic book. And they pepper the whole story with ominous iconography. There's enough in this story to keep you beguiled.

But your bewitchery doesn't end with the narrative. Fulci's direction will keep those peepers of yours frozen on the screen. He is a true master of the cinematographic art. The entire movie is abundant with smooth pans, rapid close-ups, varied camera points of view, quick cuts, and iconic compositions - he's especially dazzling with close-up eyeballs in this flick. Another plus is the special effects. These are gruesome, and although the popping peeper isn't too realistic, the chain-whipping is. It even made me wince, and I don't wince easy.

And, the magic doesn't end with the story and the direction. This cast is splendid. Even David Warbeck isn't too bad - if you've read my other reviews, you'll know I'm not a great fan of his. However, though the role is similar to others he's taken, he's less gung-ho in this flick. He would've been better if he'd completely removed the stick from his arse, but at least it's halfway out. I particularly liked Veronica Lazar as Martha. In The Beyond, she is the Queen Of The Scared Stare. Her face says everything though her mouth hardly utters a word. And the rest of the cast is splendid in their portrayals. Though Catriona MacColl as Liza, and Cinzia Monreale as Emily, can incline towards the hammy side - but it's only once in a while, so it's not too bad.

If you've not watched a Lucio Fulci film yet, do yourself a big favour and check out The Beyond. It's not as good as The House by the Cemetery, but it's close and well worthy of your time. Gorehounds included.

Now, lay down your paintbrush because it's time to review my Absolute Horror list and see where I ranked The Beyond.

Take Care & Stay Well.

10 stars? Are you joking?

[phantasmda · 1/10 · 3 August 2011]

I can't get my head around all the people giving this film 10 stars and claiming it's one of the best horrors ever made. I like early 80's horror films and as cheesy as some of them are, you have to appreciate that they were made near on 30 years ago. This however, was one painful watch.

The Good: The gore and effects were very well done for the time and still hold their own now. Credit where it's due but that's about it.

The Bad: The cheesy god-awful music just bellows out at the most inappropriate times and then cuts off without warning. How a horrific scene is supposed to have any effect when cheesy 70's pop music blurts out of nowhere is beyond me.

The acting is atrocious, most of actors are Italian and are dubbed over in English, this is all fine and dandy but the shock horror expressions that they pull are hilarious. Their over the top facial expressions and body movements totally distract you from everything else that's going on.

The plot, there isn't one. Seriously, woman inherits old hotel, said hotel is built over the gateway to hell, lots of random people die for no real reason, the end.

The deaths, people just lie there and get eaten or covered in acid or torn apart by zombies without even bothering to move or trying to escape.

Common sense, there isn't any. In one scene the 2 leads are being chased by extremely slow zombies and the male lead shoots about 10 zombies in the chest and gut to no avail. Then he shoots a couple in the head and they drop to the floor. Seems simple enough right? Hit them in the head and you kill them, hit them anywhere else and it's a wasted bullet. So why oh why does this bumbling idiot waste the next 20 or so bullets shooting the zombies in the chest and shoulder?

The blind woman, she has to be the most annoying actress ever. In one scene she thinks someone is in her living room and she backs into a corner and she screams and shouts...And screams and shouts...And shouts and screams...And so on and so forth for a good 5 minutes, "no, no go away leave me alone" she wails constantly, over and over for 5 solid minutes, it completely did my head in and was totally unnecessary.

The scares, there aren't any, there is nothing scary about this film at all, sure, there's a decent amount of gore in the film but none of it is scary or even unnerving. The music, acting and shoddy camera work see to that.

As I said, I love early 80's horror films, The deadly spawn, Phenomena, Demons, I spit on your grave, The burning to name but a few, but The Beyond is a big pile of steaming crap. One reviewer on here wrote "If you haven't seen The Beyond you are not a real horror buff" Well my friend, I have seen The Beyond and if you can call this "Horror" then you have my sympathies. Quite simply put, it is rubbish, even for an early 80's film.

My vote is 3 for the gore effects alone.

Great movie with Joe the Plumber

[lydicdude · 31 December 2016]

This is probably my favorite horror movie of all time, and that stacks up against the pure genius of stuff like Phantasm, Evil Dead, Phenomenon and Dead Alive or any Romero. We have "Shocktoberfest" at my place every year over several nights, and I remember it being the 2008 election season when we watched The Beyond (like we do just about every year). We were totally blown away by John McCain and Joe the Plumber being in the same movie from 1981!!! Well, it's actually "John McCabe" but being that close to the election we could only hear "McCain," and our heads probably weren't on completely straight. Fulci is a master and transcends space-time to bring us the ultimate in fear and gore.

'Never Explain Anything' -- H.P. Lovecraft

[Kaliyugaforkix · 7/10 · 3 June 2011]

At first- distant, a pulsing patch of contortions; a swelter, shifting pattern of familiar faces & grisly ends, circling overhead to bend & shape space-time into fabulous new contortions. Some memorable images pulled from this cavalcade of perversions, this storm of deus ex machina death scenes & stream of conscious contrivance, labyrinthine incongruity:

A lynch mob of angry villagers confronting an occult artist in his humid Louisiana inn, chain-whipping him in a rush of hysteria-fuelled violence before casting out the warlock to the secretive sub-basement below, crucifying our pulverized painter before launching the last blow, drowning his face in quicklime & watching as it dissolves into a puddle of warm mush....

A beautiful blind girl & her loyal seeing-eye canine standing dead centre of the Pontchartrain, miles of coast stretching endlessly into the distance on all sides, the deformed rings of her retinas staring somehow knowingly into the camera lens.....

A child with scarlet hair walking into a hospital morgue, her mother lying prone on the ground as a glass jar of acid turns over above her, spilling down into her face to burn away flesh & sinew, cartilage & bone in a snap crackle *puff* of acrid smoke-the growing puddle of gore spreading beneath the girl's shoes & a one-eyed zombie reaching out of the freezer to grab her in the frantic effort to sidestep the mess....

A man in the library prowling amongst the stacks, startled off his ladder perch at a high shelf & crashing to the ground below by a freak strike of lightning before a parade of tarantulas slowly march on his face, tearing it to oozing shreds in a cacophony of squealing mewling insect noises, the illustration on the pages of the discarded volume beside him vanishing into thin air....

Deformed by putrefaction, a recently dead plumber slowly rises from the filthy black murk of a forgotten tub in the dilapidated remains of the very same inn some 60 years hence, grabbing his prey by her face & slowly forcing her head onto the deadly point of large nail protruding from a crumbling wall, pushing all the way through her skull on impact & dislodging an eyeball, blood raining in a fountain out her hollowed- out ocular cavity....

The blind girl in her parlor at twilight, pleading with a zombie horde not to take her back to the other side, their grotesque, rotten visages staring implacably down, all before her loyal dog turns in a fit of supernaturally inspired treachery, with the force of it's muzzle tearing out her throat, her ear & scalp; the screen stained again with crimson rivers.....

The abandoned inn deserted by night, the silhouettes of nameless dead lurching to & fro by the illuminated windowsills, spine-tingling echoes reverberating over the soundtrack....

The plucky duo of recent innkeeper & skeptical doctor fleeing a newly risen zombie horde through the linoleum hallways of the abandoned local hospital, freshly opened hell-gate again folding space-time in their wake so that a random doorway inexplicably leads, as if in a dream, back to the haunted inn from whence they started, miles transversed in seconds, their gravest efforts thwarted in a twinkle. We leave them, passing through that trans-dimensional gateway to the other side, a barren wasteland with no beginning & no end, doomed to an eternity wondering the void with retinas transmogrified like the blind girl....

Some constants amid the chaos, landmarks in the void: the gatekeeper blind girl uttering dire warnings to the living, the dead bringing swift jealous vengeance to the same, the dead artist & his final work, extracting blood from his canvas & of course the hotel itself, looming ominously over all- points on a singed map past reading, no true direction nor destination, doomed to wander the dreamscape like our protagonists, trying to impose order on the orderless, shape on the shapeless, meaning on the meaningless.

The Beyond = Horror.

[mrphantasm · 10/10 · 19 January 2005]

If someone uses as reference the IMDb rating of L'aldilá he is going to notice something particular. L'aldilá unlike many B-Euro-horror movies of the 80s has almost a 7 points rating with less than 2000 votes. The reason: Many people worship this cult movie. If someone ranks this movie with a 1 on the other side there will be a 10 to compensate. We are speaking about a true cult movie. Acclaimed by a small number of fans worldwide, a movie scorned by critics and the regular viewer. One strange case indeed.

The story is a disturbing mix of elements. In the first minutes during the execution of Schweick , it is clear what kind of tale is L'aldilá. Vengeance beyond the grave, an apocalypse that is unavoidable. Common people trapped in the middle. One of the merits of Sarchetti's script is the character of Katriona Maccoll a real down to earth human being, his partner is a curious but good man. Both of them tried to do things right, but in the end that won't help . The brutality of violence is another great detail, is unexpected, extreme and very, very graphic. And as the final touch, the climatic ending. The assonant music has its logic, this is disturbing terror, it wouldn't be the same with new-age, reggae, or a ballad.

Lucio Fulci was an unique director. With L'aldilá he tried to create an 'artaudian' study of horror. He achieved that. He used less than 90 minutes to mix ominous menaces that are beyond this world waiting their time for return and extremely gory horror. The unavoidable tragedy strikes in the form of hungry zombies. He was a demanding director, he never let that their actors underestimate their roles. His use of zoom-effects are a trademark, the zoom in used in a completely original way. Let's say the zoom is the hand of someone that keep your eyes open in an awful or transcendental sequence, Fulci forces you to pay attention when he wants your attention. Delightful. Nowadays audiences are very comfortable watching horror movies. They expect to see some scares and then laugh with the jokes of some stupid teens avid of rave music and easy sex. Fulci in that aspect was an author beyond his time. He tried to shock people, scare them, revolve their stomachs, those were his methods to gain the public but he NEVER underestimated the audiences, he gave his 100% and made cult classics.

Note for Fulci newcomers: The more interesting works of this director are in the period of middle 70's to 1985. If you see two or three of his movies in this period and you dislike them then don't bother anymore because you will never like his style.

Forget the non linear plot, check out the gore n some of the best special effects.

[Fella_shibby · 7/10 · 2 February 2017]

I saw this first on a VHS in the late 80s titled as Seven doors of death. The VHS guy told me that it was a rare copy. Revisited recently on a blu ray. The film may be frustrating to some viewers because it does not follow a linear path. The movie starts in 1927 Louisiana hotel where v get to see an angry mob, some arriving in boats while others in cars. Yeehaw! They torture n kill a painter, crucifying him on the wall. The blood which comes out from his hand resembles dirty muddy water. Fast forward, a girl from New York inherits this hotel n she starts renovation. How she inherits this hotel no explanation given. A painter falls off after he sees a girl with the creepiest contact lenses. Later we see the new owner of the hotel driving on a seemingly endless bridge to nowhere n the same creepy lenses blind girl standing with her dog on the bridge. A plumber goes to repair the mysterious flooding in the basement n there is the most nastiest eye popping scene. Later the bodies of the plumber n the painter (who's now a decayed n dead zombie) r moved to the morgue where the doc puts ECG machine on the zombie. Crazy science! The painters wife comes to dress the body for funeral n she sees something which we don't get to see n she screams n v get to c an open jar of acid (who keeps an open jar of acid) kept on top of a shelf which is shaking n slowly the acid is dropping on the mothers face, while the daughter who entered hearing the scream tries to escape the acidic froth which goes on like a wave. Cut back to the funeral n we get to see the daughter of the plumber too turned blind with similar creepy lenses. A contractor goes to the city hall to retrieve some old plans of the hotel n he falls down the ladder n is attacked by tarantulas n they do eat his eyeballs. Whats the eyeball obsession? Now the original blind girl who's been dismissed as a ghost or someone who doesn't exist, is attacked by her dog. Who was she is never explained. Do we care? Nope. In the end v get to c hordes of slow walking zombies. The doc keeps on firing, sometimes on the head n sometimes on other body parts. Maybe his aim wasn't that good or else how can he not know about shooting the zombies on the head. The best part is that without reloading the gun, he keeps on firing. One very good scene of a head-shot. Superb effects there. The ending is done surprisingly well and offers a nice little final touch of horror. The doc n the owner r trapped in the painting. Technically, Salvati did a good job with the cinematography. Germano Natali did some stunning special effects. All in all the director Lucio fulci did a terrific job with the lil resources he had to work with.

For Fulci and gore fans only. This tale of a door way to hell offers almost no sense and a great deal of gore

[dbborroughs · 3/10 · 17 October 2006]

This is the story of a girl who inherits a hotel in Louisiana where years before all of the guests suddenly disappeared not long after a wizard was killed in the basement. The woman begins renovations and in the process unleashes a terrible evil and one of the seven doors to hell.

As many of people have said about Lucio Fulci, he never let plot get in the way of him making a movie. This is the best example of that, it has almost no plot. Basically a series of set pieces arranged in order to have a loose dream logic this is a movie that makes no sense whats so ever. What ever happens happens to get us to the next thing. The warlock from the start warns the people who lynch him that he's the only one keeping them safe. He is, in effect, the good guy keeping the gate closed. Later his resurrected corpse proves to be the villain killing everyone off and raising the rest of the dead. It makes no real sense, then again very little, including the carnivorous spiders in the library, makes any sense.

I'm one of those people who wonder at the horror fans who LOVE Fulci's work. Don't get me wrong I do think he was a good director, I like his westerns, however I wonder why, outside of his set pieces, people rave about his horror films. Yes, I'm a fan of Zombie and I like City of the Living Dead, but many of his other horror films, this one included leave me shaking my head (and hitting the fast forward button). No doubt he was one of the movers and shakers in the Italian horror cycle of the early 1980's but it was because of his splatter and not because of his genius at crafting a horror story. I do accept that there is often a dream logic that carries things along, but at the same time Fulci often abandons it to the next eye gouge opportunity. While his over all output as a director argues against it, his horror output, for the most part,sees him in hack territory. Genius of the gross out set piece? Absolutely. Director of scary horror films? Not really.

This is not a good movie. And even if you could convince me it was I'll never say its a great one. Certainly it has some really cool scenes-most of the deaths are intriguing to look at, but thats about all. The plot as I said is close to non existent and uses a good number of standard Italian horror ploys, gate ways to hell, zombies, gore, weird women, electronic music...oh do I have to go on? This film is a turkey. Its for gore-hounds alone.

(For those looking for the full uncut version: I could be wrong but I think the Diamond Entertainment release under the name Seven Doors of Death is the complete film. Its run time of just over 84 minutes is less than the full running time, but longer than the cut US version of the same name, certainly all the gore seems intact. If this was sourced from a PAL original the film would be complete.)

Lucio Fulci's morbid masterpiece that combines atmosphere with extreme gore.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 10/10 · 11 December 2001]

Forming a loose trilogy with Fulci's "The Gates of Hell"(1980)and "House by the Cemetery"(1981),this gruesome bloodbath is one of the best horror movies ever made.Set in Louisiana,the film opens with a 1927 prologue featuring a Satanic painter being crucified and melted alive with quicklime in the basement of an old hotel.54 years later,Liza(Catriona MacColl)inherits the hotel and sets about restoring it.Little does she know that a 4000-year old book containing the prophecies of Eibon marks her new home as one of seven gateways to Hell.The atmosphere is so thick you could cut it with a chainsaw,the music by Fabio Frizzi is excellent,the set pieces are great,and the gore effects by Gianetto de Rossi and Germano Natali are really effective.The gore is extreme for example a poor plumber has his eyeball poked out by a zombie,an architect has his face eaten by hungry tarantulas who chew out his tongue,a blind Emily has her throat ripped out by her guide dog(this scene reminds me a similar sequence in Dario Argento's "Suspiria").Anyway if you haven't seen this cult masterpiece don't call yourself a horror buff.10 out of 10-what else?

Fulci's macabre romance with the supernatural...

[insomniac_rod · 7/10 · 22 May 2011]

When you watch a Lucio Fulci film, keep in mind that you will literally watch it only. What do I mean? There's no coherence in the story, no deep meaning. In order to enjoy a Fulci film you must think like the master himself.

"The Beyond" features fabulous moments for those who enjoy gore. Tarantulas ripping an eyeball, tearing up a lower lip, and literally destroying a man's face is a prime example of the movie's violence. But we also have nasty gunshots (one of them makes a girl's head explode), a nail through the head, eyes ripped by a hand, a dog ripping an ear, etc.

But the supernatural elements make this film different from the regular Italian gorefest. We get a creepy atmosphere, zombies from the beyond, a book of prophecies, and Fulci's favorites; female ghosts.

Fulci's involvement in the occult could only mean that he thinks that supernatural events should be considered as something normal in modern society.

Overall, this is a film that can be enjoyed by fans of Italian horror. Fulci is not for everyone, in fact, he could be considered as a master in bad taste but something that everybody should be recognize is that he's a sui generis director.

P.S. Loved Fulci's cameo where he makes a harsh criticism towards government workers.

Overrated piece of s**t

[d97patb · 1/10 · 23 August 1999]

First of all, I like horror films and have nothing against blood, gore & violence if it has any meaning to the film. But most of the gore in this film has no meaning at all, it just seems that Fulci was obsessed with overexaggerated scenes of blood & guts. For example the scene where a man falls from a ladder in the library. If it was some other director the man would have simply fallen and died when he hit the floor. But thats not enough for Fulci! After the fall the man is attacked by spiders who shred his face into a bloody mess! Really, what does that have to do with the rest of the film? Overall I think Fulci is way overrated. The reason i hunted down some of his movies (they are not too easy to get hold of in Sweden. Especially uncut) was that I had seen on the Internet that many horror-fans consider him one of the greatest horror-directors. I now have seen New York Ripper, Zombie, House By The Cemetary and this one and I find all of them to be plain garbage. It seems to me that Fulci was without any talent whatsoever. This movie is not scary, not funny, it is just ludicrous. The only way you can get something out of watching this is if you like to watch bad films like Plan 9 From Outer Space or if think it is fun to watch lots of fake-looking gore.

Check out the piano score

[Semih · 8/10 · 22 June 2000]

Ofcourse this is a pretty great film; great special effects with minor exceptions, great plot, bad acting with minor exceptions, etc... What I really liked was the music composed by Fabio Frizzi. First we've got this great "goblin-esque" Italian horror music (for those of you who don't know, Goblin is this band that provided music for several Italian horror films, such as Tenebre.) My favorite cue is the theme for the blind lady with the dog. It has a piano playing a very haunting melody to a set background chord. The theme reappears pretty much whenever that lady appears.

I first watched this film on VHS with the cut version and it was boring as hell. But yesterday in the new releases of Scarecrow Video in Seattle (some advertisement there) I found it released as an uncut version for region 1 DVD's. Plus, it was widescreen. I enjoyed it immensely.

A Hellishly good film

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 26 June 2014]

"The Beyond" is a film that will offer lots and lots of frights even though it is a bit scant on plot. This makes it a perfect film to watch to scare yourself and your friends without needing to worry about following exactly what's happening. This is NOT a criticism--it really isn't. And, sometimes you want to see a film that is one thrill after another.

A young woman inherits a hotel in New Orleans--a city that is reputed to be very haunted. However, this place makes EVERY haunted place in the city put together seem like paradise! This is because everyone around the woman keeps dying horrible deaths--very bloody and horrible deaths. They are absolutely horrific--such as a dog tearing out someone's throat as blood goes shooting everywhere! However, and this is important, while very bloody and intense, the special effects are not as realistic as movies today. This is a GOOD thing, as the film would have simply been nauseating and disgusting--but instead, you could laugh off the deaths. Now by 1981 standards, they were not bad at all--something that works very well when seen today.

So is it worth seeing? Absolutely. As I said above, if you are just looking to be scared it's very good. But I didn't give it an even higher score because a few scenes were a bit cheesy (such as the obviously fake tarantulas used in one death). I also thought the guy helping the lady at the end was an idiot. Even though EVERY head shot killed the zombies, he kept shooting them in the chest with no effect! And these were really, really, really slow zombies and he could have easily used 1 bullet per zombie! What a knucklehead! So, remember--if you are being attacked by zombies, conserve your bullets and concentrate only on head shots!

Gratuitous fakey gore

[mrespony · 1/10 · 1 November 2004]

This movie is bloody awful. It makes zero sense. It has some of the most inappropriate uses of gore I've ever seen, it's just a collection of hastily strung together setups for really bad special effects that go on way too long. For example, when the guy falls in the records room and the spiders come for him, why did they use real and fake spiders at the same time? It's laughable. Why was there an opened bottle of acid in the autopsy room and why did the lady just fall down and sit there while acid poured on her face?

I watched this movie with a group of friends late last night and we were shocked by how bad it was. The viewing turned into an episode of MST3K, everybody was ripping it. I've seen Fulci's "Zombi" and "The City of the Living Dead" and all I can say about this director is that he is completely overrated. His films do not hold up over time, they aren't frightening and they certainly aren't entertaining. I can't believe that Rolling Thunder helped re-release this schlock. When you consider the other horror films that were coming out in the states around this time, like "Alien" and John Carpenter's "The Thing" it really shames Fulci. "The Beyond" is low-budget gore-spoliation that might have been freaky in say 1973, but in 1981 it was passe and in 2004 it is comedy. Take it from me, avoid this at all costs. Where do I go for a refund?