100 Scariest Movie Moments: #60 The Beyond

I think the best way to start my review of The Beyond is by discussing the opening scene…

In New Orleans in 1927, a young man named Schweick (Antoine Saint-John) is attacked and killed in a hotel by locals who claim that he’s a “Warlock.” He cries out that the hotel was built on one of the seven “Gates of Death,” and that he’s the only one who can save them.

Why do I highlight this scene​? Because I’ve watched the movie three times and still don’t have a clue if he was actually evil or not. Beyond that, I also don’t know if killing him was a wise move that delayed the evil, or a foolish move that provoked it.

It seems to be a common issue with most Italian horror. Sure, there’s a plot in there somewhere that you could sift through. But do you really want to bother understanding why a man’s face is being eaten by spiders, when you could simply sit back and enjoy it?

The protagonist of the film is a woman by the name of Liza (Catriona MacColl), who inherits the hotel. She begins to experience strange occurrences. She encounters a blind woman named Emily (Cinzia Monreale) who her love interest John (David Warbek) insists doesn’t actually exist. He says that Emily’s house is abandoned and has been for some time. Liza also begins seeing a book, called the Book of Eibon, which mysteriously disappears from the local book store with the owner insisting it never existed at all. Eventually, Emily tells Liza that many years ago, everyone in the hotel disappeared mysteriously.

This movie was made long before the fad among movie enthusiasts of interpreting events as existing entirely in the main character’s head, so the director doesn't even bother hinting at that, thankfully. Yes, people think she’s insane, but they’re wrong. Because other characters experience the supernatural phenomena as well, but typically only once it’s attacking them.

The movie was probably made even weirder by the fact the producers demanded that zombies be included. Director Lucio Fulci wanted a movie about people dying in a haunted house, and characters periodically being attacked by zombies certainly does shake the mood up a bit. However, I don’t think this is a bad thing. It’s a movie about the strange and bizarre, so something happening that really makes no sense is more than welcome.

If anything, the ending of the movie makes too much sense. John and Liza pass through the portal and find themselves in a desert, being blinded by the blowing sand. This gives us a convenient explanation for Emily’s origin; she escaped from this place. Still, I’m not sure how this directly ties into most of the other strange happenings, beyond “evil desert made them happen.”

I should also note that as with most Italian horror, the score is absolutely fantastic. It’s emotionally charged, and manages to be both exciting and creepy at the same time.

It’s unfortunate that this movie is so hard to find through legal channels. I wasn’t able to find it available to stream, and Netflix had it on very long wait for quite a while before removing it from their DVD listings entirely, so I had to just suck it up and buy the DVD. That being said however, was it worth it? Yes, yes it was.