The Beyond (1981)

When the topic comes around to zombie movies - or any film venture wherein hoards of the undead torment the living - many names are bandied about (George A. Romero, Stuart Gordon, Jesus Franco, Bruno Mattei), but none bring a smile to the lips of the knowing quite like the maestro of such pics: Lucio Fulci.

This is a man who had an interesting life, to say the least: a former medical student and art critic, an out-spoken proponent of Marxism, past master of the giallo film and very much NOT a darling of the British Board of Film, Fulci doubtless had an artist's eye and the tortured soul of same. Small wonder that he would be given the title "The Godfather of Gore", and become a leading name in the world of Italian Cinema.

...okay, okay; maybe not as leading a name as Federico Fellini or Sergio Leone, but film buffs such as I respect Fulci for his intense style, claustrophobic settings, shocking moments of gore, innumerable camera zooms and the many sweaty, wide-eyed actors fighting for their lives against forces of darkness.

These are qualities all of us look for in any right-thinking zombie movie and Fulci drives them all to the fore in our subject for today, The Beyond.

Only problem is...this is not technically a zombie movie.

Oh really, you say. Then what is it?

Allow me to explain....

First, the plot: in 1927 New Orleans, an enraged vigilante group attacks an artist named Schweik (Antoine Saint John) in a small hotel for being a warlock. He is savagely beaten with chains, nailed by his wrists to a cellar wall and his flesh melted away with quicklime. Ouch.

Flash-forward to 1981, as young Liza Merril (Catriona MacColl) comes from New York City to claim inheritance to the hotel. As soon as she arrives, her painter falls off his rig and is gravely injured and a plumber named Joe is murdered by eye-gouging as he attempts to repair the flooded cellar.

After a visit from a blind woman named Emily (Sarah Keller) and many more horrific deaths (by acid, killer tarantulas, throat-ripping dogs and flying shards of glass - you know, the usual), Liza and local doctor John McCabe (David Warbeck) become convinced that the hotel itself is built over a doorway of Hell which is now poised to be opened and the rotting, shambling corpses of the damned will take over the earth.

Well. So much for resale value.

Working from a script co-written with longtime collaborator Dardano Sacchetti, Fulci brings a sense of dread to even such everyday events as visiting the library, going to a cafe or even driving on a bridge. As any good director would do, Fulci signs The Beyond with his own trademarks: big bold swaths of dark red blood and hard uncompromising despair. Which he does well - after all, we're not talking about Tim Burton territory here.

Of course, there are some ideas that are downright silly: why would you hook up a long-dead corpse to an EMG machine? Why would a coroner poise a jar of acid so precariously on top of an obviously unstable shelf? Why would a hospital that is supposed to be in New Orleans (which is in North America, remember) have a sign in big bold print that quite obviously says DO NOT ENTRY?

Does any of this make sense? Should any of it make sense?

Actually, NO, it shouldn't - the overall feel of The Beyond is a fever dream; images and moments float by and shock and horrify as they should. Terrifying moments of fright jump at you and leave the viewer as disoriented and unknowing of what to expect as the people in the film would be. This was a signature feeling of Fulci's work before and since and he gives it his all.

Acting, of course, is at the level to be expected. MacColl and Warbeck, both veterans of such films (and actors in other Fulci efforts) do their stalwart best and make their characters not so much believable as acceptable. After all, acting is not an option in films like this: anyone would do the same things as they in the same situations. Especially when the dead start shambling after the living during the climax....

Now, about these zombies (since I said this wasn't really a zombie movie): originally, there were supposed to be NO ZOMBIES in this film. None. Just horrifying imagery and blood and gore. But the thing is, the German distributors of The Beyond had a market where zombie movies were all the rage. If this movie was going to make money in Zurich, then there would have to be a zombie rampage, the distributors insisted. Never ones to lose funding/distribution/an audience because of a piddly little thing like the undead, Fulci and company relented and so...helloooo, undead hordes!

So then The Beyond did go on to make money but, like a lot of Fulci's films, also was chastised by critics for its gore, lack of substance and so forth...it was arty but not an art film...it was scary but nowhere near as substantial as it should have been...it was popcorn and fluff, topped with gouts of blood.

Well? So what if it is? The Beyond is also a classic example of what Fulci does best. He draws in the viewer, he shocks them with unexpected images, he makes what should have been implausible fly in the face of logic and twist it into its own reality. In other words, he makes a good horror movie.

Good lord, people: if The Beyond has the stamp of approval of Quentin Tarantino...a fair director in his own right...then what does that tell you? Granted, he also loves Switchblade Sisters, but I've never seen that...maybe it's the American chicks-with-knives equivalent of Italian blood and gore horror? Well, still, there you go.

Towards the end of his life, in ill health and dwindling resources, Fulci's later films came nowhere near the power his earlier triumphs had. But long after his passing he continues to have a devoted following and fans defend his films to their dying breath...probably until they rise up and shamble along, moaning "Fuuuulllllciiiii...."

I'm sure I would too, under the right circumstances, because I dearly love The Beyond with all my black heart and tortured soul.

And so should you, if you love horror movies, doorway to Hell movies or extreme gore movies.

And if you love Lucio Fulci, then you probably already own or have seen this movie.

So then why am I preaching to the choir here?

Maybe I'm just repeating what's already been imprinted in my brain.

Maybe I'm already dead.

...

Fuuuulllllciiiii....