"What
I wanted to get across with this film was the idea that all of life is
often really a terrible nightmare and that our only refuge is to remain
in this world, but outside time. In the end, the two protagonists' eye
turn completely white and they find themselves in a desert where there's
no light, no wind, no shade, no nothing. I believe, being Catholic, that
they have reached what many people imagine to be the afterworld."
Lucio Fulci on The Beyond
Has anybody in
the history of cinema done more damage to the human eye than Lucio
Fulci? His 1981 classic The Beyond (Seven Doors of Death) is no
exception, the film remains Lucio Fulci's masterpiece.
Lucio Fulci held back on the zoom lens and created a film as beautiful
as anything Argento has done, a surrealistic journey into hell featuring
an astronomical amount of gore. Besides the Lucio Fulci staples of eyes
being ripped out or poked in, we have a throat ripping dog, an incredible
tarantula attack that has to be seen to be believed, a crucifixion with
the longest nails known to man, and the now infamous light through the
head shot.
The
story concerns a New Orleans hotel overlooking the Seven Gates of Hell,
and a sinister painting by an artist murdered years before for being
a warlock. In a terrific sepia tinted prologue a group of angry townsfolk
make their way by canoe to the hotel. They break into an artists room
and accuse him of witchcraft. In flesh ripping, Fulci fashion, they
first beat him with chains before crucifying him. The nails pounded
into the artists arms is brutally realistic and EXTREMELY nasty. Next
the fine town people start tossing this bubbling slop into his face
by the shovelful. Fulci's camera lingers as the goop disintegrates the
warlocks face in a bloody, frothy mess.
We
move to modern day New Orleans where the terrific Catrionia MacColl
takes over the damned property and finds herself surrounded by a creepy
blind girl, bloody accidents, murderous zombies and the terrific late
New Zealand actor David Warbeck. MacColl hires this silly handyman who
releases the crucified warlock when breaking down a wall. The handyman
pays for this by having his eye brutally squeezed out of his head in
one of Fulci's nastiest scenes. Soon all hell is breaking loose as Zombies
roam the hotel and the nearby hospital.
Italain fx master Gianetto de Rossi delivers some of the
most impressive, gruesome effects in film history.
This guy has a knack for creating some really nasty, painful looking shit.
Interpretations may vary
as Lucio Fulci builds scene upon scene of incredible violence and suspense
until the final ambiguous ending. Quentin Tarantino's company Rolling
Thunder released The Beyond for a brief stint in the major cities as
well as reprinting the classic original poster. The great Anchor Bay released a terrific
DVD tin with poster reproductions, booklet and a DVD packed with extra goodies. Check it out!
