Video Nasty #15: The Beyond

Synopsis: Welcome to Louisiana's recently refurbished Seven Doors hotel. Breakfast is served 8 till 10, Checkout is at 11. The gym's on the first floor and the gateway to hell is in the basement.

Although i’ve only seen a few of Fulci’s movies (there are three on the DPP list), I can understand why people often refer to The Beyond as his masterpiece. The Beyond is a nightmare committed to celluloid, set pieces of incredibly visceral and inventive gore bound together with a storyline that is set in the same waking nightmare, not constrained by conscious reasoning and the earth bound laws of nature. I can understand why some people would take issue with the story's apparent plot-holes and inconsistencies, but when has a nightmare ever made sense?


The film opens in sepia toned Louisiana, a torch wielding mob storming the Seven Doors hotel to take their revenge on the warlock in room 36 who they believe has damned them all. From the outset Fulci is keen to let the viewer know he means business; The artist’s flesh is lacerated with chains, his body crucified in the basement and covered in boiling acid. All of this is done with unflinching voyeuristic camera shots, which left me feeling slightly disgusted but also perversely impressed. Unfortunately in taking their revenge for the warlock's unspecified sins the locals have opened one of the seven doors to hell (It sounds like hell seriously falls foul of fire exit regulations).

The film then moves to the now past present (1981) and we follow Lisa, the hotel’s new proprietor, as she starts renovating the seventh gate of hell for new guests (to be fair, i’d take my chances with the seventh gate of hell over Premier Inn any day). Whilst everyone involved in the venture is dying in horrible ways Lisa continues to investigate the mystery of room 36, helped by an apparently non-existent blind girl and the local doctor.

Although I’ve seen films that are, in terms of gallons of blood shed, far more bloody than The Beyond (Peter Jackson’s Braindead is untouchable in this respect), I can’t think of a film that has as many effective hands-in-front-of-eyes sequences. Fulci is a master of gore and his sick mind seems to come up with ever inventive and horrible deaths. His eye gouging obsession aside (the retina removals in this are far more effective than the infamous splinter sequence in Fulci’s previous Zombi 2) there are some nightmare inducing scenes, including a paralysed man being attacked by flesh tearing tarantulas, sulphuric acid melting an unconscious woman’s face and a girl being chased by a pool of her dead mother's blood.


Towards the film’s climax I was slightly concerned that Fulci had backed himself into a corner. Given how powerful the evil is, it seemed unlikely that the lead characters could possibly over come it. And, thankfully, Fulci doesn’t deliver anything like a happy ending, but something that is as ambiguous and unexplained as the plot that came before it. This is ultimately what makes the film work. Aside from a few nods to plot, there’s no attempt made to explain what is happening, or to understand the malevolent force at work. Evil can’t be explained, it just is.