CheerupSilver Very Cool!!!

Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Isbel A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

brandamnatoms The Beyond, like most horror films that came out between 1978 and 1992, spends most of its time revealing in a shower of blood. Each attack, each death feels like an attempt to not only upstage any previous bloodletting, but an endeavor to find new, creative ways to kill its cast (dogs and spiders going a long way). What The Beyond is crippled by, however, is a completely incomprehensible plot, even by horror standards. To avoid spoilers (for there is still fun to be had with this film), all the audience needs to know is this: ignore following the story. The headache it will induce is far more frightening than the film. There are hotels, zombies, possessions, and gateways to Hell, to count a few obvious turns, but none of it connects very well, and a film like The Beyond is more concerned with the bloodshed than how it gets to the moments of murder.See, I heard about this film from a book I've had for years, "Lurker in the Lobby," by Andrew Migliore and John Strysik, about films featuring either direct, or obvious, H.P. Lovecraft influences. As an avid fan of Lovecraft's I thought I would give this film a look (and to Migliore's and Strysik's credit, they too warned the story was a horror all its own). As a fan of Lovecraft inspired horror, this film still had some merit, and was enjoyable from that view. Sure, it's not entirely cosmic horror (the ending, perhaps, comes closest to being cosmic), but there are enough nods to Lovecraftian tropes that it worked. Would I watch The Beyond again? Not likely, but for the brief hour and nearly a half I was mildly entertained. The Beyond works as a quick Saturday afternoon flick if you are a Lovecraft fan who doesn't mind ignoring a film's story, and not much else.

Fella_shibby 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.

Brian L 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.

TheRedDeath30 I go to a lot of horror conventions and I frequent a lot of horror message boards. I find in my conversations there that most horror geeks go through a typical exploration. You start with the big budget Hollywood horror that was readily available and as your tastes grow more, you start delving deeper into the horror underground. Inevitably, for most horror fans you exhaust the domestic classics and start digging into the foreign films, which brings us to Italian horror and, more specifically, Lucio Fulci.Let's just establish quickly that his films are either going to be appreciated or hated and there is little middle ground. I will admit that it took me a few runs through Italian horror films until I started to "get it" more and appreciate them. Accept right off the bat that you are throwing plot and logic out the window to appreciate imagery. Fulci believed strongly that the best horror should elicit a strong response in the audience and spur them to a feeling or action. It did not have to be a "good story". If you can't get past the fact that the movie doesn't always make good sense, then don't bother. I'm not going to tell you you're wrong because it's perfectly logical to want a good plot in a movie. On the other hand, art doesn't always have to make sense. The art of Jackson Pollock doesn't portray life in the same way as a Reubens portrait might, but that doesn't mean they aren't both valid art.So, with the caveats out of the way, let's talk about the movie. To me, ZOMBIE will always be Fulci's masterpiece and is in my top 50 horror films. This movie is easily his next best. The story revolves around a hotel built on one of the gates to hell, which naturally causes some strange occurrences on the grounds. It's hard to give you more plot than that because...well..there isn't much more. What the movie can provide, though, is good atmosphere and some awesome visual effects.The tone of the movie is consistently creepy. Originally intended to be a haunted house flick, but altered some to make the producers happy, the movie still adheres well to the haunted house feel. From the beginning scenes, there is something unsettling about the house and the events going on and Fulci plays this well by injecting a surreal feeling into things so that it truly feels like a nightmare.The deaths are what you're paying admission for, though. There are some great visual effects here. Gallons of spurting blood, ripping flesh, melting faces, spiders tearing chunks off people. For gorehounds there is a lot of fun to be had here and that's what draws me into this movie the most.Fulci's movies always walk a thin line between surreal and ridiculous. The first time I encountered this movie I wasn't quite sure how I felt about it, but as I've seen it a few more times I've really grown an appreciation for the movie. Set aside your preconceived notions about plot (who needs it) and just enjoy the ride for what it is, a bloody, disgusting, thrill.