The Beyond
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- Release Date: April 29, 1981
- Directed by: Lucio Fulci
- Written by: Dardano Sacchetti, Giorgio Mariuzzo and Lucio Fulci
- Runtime: 1 hour 27 minutes
- Series: Gates of Hell Trilogy
After opening the gates of Hell in City of the Living Dead, Lucio Fulci decided to revisit the same concept with its follow-up, The Beyond. While not a straightforward sequel to City, the movie covers many of the same themes such as a gateway to Hell, the reanimation of the dead, an evil book, and the end of the world. Many people consider it to be Fulci's greatest horror film, and if you ask me, it's a perfect showcase of what he did best in the genre.
The Beyond follows a woman who buys an old hotel in Louisiana and plans to fix it up. Unknown to her, the hotel is built on top of one of the gateways to Hell, and various horrific murders and supernatural occurrences begin to occur around her. It's a little difficult to write much about the plot of The Beyond not because the film doesn't have one, but because it doesn't really matter much. While there is a storyline following our heroine investigating the history of the hotel and its connection to Hell and black magic, the main purpose of the movie is simply to show off some of the best death scenes that Italian horror cinema has to offer. City of the Living Dead may have been intense with its vomiting of intestines and brains being ripped out, but The Beyond matches its level of graphic violence, if not exceeds it. The plot takes time out for minutes at a time to show a head being melted by acid in graphic detail, or a man's head being devoured piece by piece by a swarm of tarantulas. It savors every bit of bloodshed and gore on screen, and makes sure that the images get drilled into your eyeballs. The zombies in the film are also a great hybrid of City's gooey, slimy undead and Zombi 2's more textured and dirty makeup work. If you're a fan of gore films, I can't think of a better showcase of the batshit insanity that Italian horror films were capable of at the time.
The movie also takes the surreal nature of City's scares and amplifies them in various ways. The common occurrence of zombies appearing out of nowhere happens here as well, but this time the various evils seem to have no rules about when or where they appear. Since the gateway to Hell lies beneath the hotel, any character that has entered the hotel or even interacts with someone who has is fair game to have horrific things happen to them. No one is safe in this story, not even children. Fabio Frizzi's score also adds a feeling of disorientation to the film. Whereas City's soundtrack used a lot of slower and more ominous songs to match the dark, foggy setting of Dunwich, The Beyond sounds a lot more lively in comparison. Take the song Voci Dal Nulla for example, with its synthesized vocals and ascending melody. It doesn't exactly match the gross imagery going on, but it adds a unique feel to the scene. It's like the soundtrack is daring you to bob your head and dance as eyeballs are being torn out in front of you. It's a chaotic mashup of scary images and odd sounds, and if Fulci was attempting to make a dreamlike horror film, I think he succeeded very well.
The Beyond takes everything that City of the Living Dead set up and tweaks it to perfection. I can never decide which film I like more between the two, as both of them deliver everything that I love about Italian horror films. Trying to describe The Beyond doesn't compare at all to actually watching it. It's a fever dream of a horror film that works best when you don't put too much thought into it. Just put the movie on, kick back, and let Hell wash over you.