Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

FrogGlace In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

Melanie Bouvet The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Michael A. Martinez This is a tough film to review.I remember back in 1996 going on the hunt for this movie after hearing about it through various horror/zombie/gore websites on the early days of the internet. Back then, simply finding this movie was a revelation and to see that it was actually professionally made was the frosting on the cake, as most underground horror movies (think FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE, I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, etc.) tended to be amateur efforts. This film did not disappoint albeit with many misgivings.After a few decades and many rewatches and re-evaluations, I have to say it's not the easiest movie to watch. Pacing-wise it has the nasty habit of speeding up and slowing down repeatedly, as though the writers and director just didn't really care about things in between the gore set-pieces. As a result, I didn't care much either as most of the dialog couldn't be more banal and the characters more hollow. Both stars Warbeck and MacColl do their best with their lines, but their characters literally come from nowhere. There's even dialog suggesting that one or more of the side-characters may be imaginary. Okay, so if Arthur, Martha, etc. are all imaginary or purgatory souls, etc. why can't the main characters also be imaginary and why don't they act more consistently off-kilter? Is this all some dream? Why care about any of this? A few scenes fleshing out the relationships & motivations would have helped enormously.The scenes involving the blind woman who may or may not be there to help could have been creepy and added some tension, but instead she's the most dull character in Italian horror history, serving up nothing but confusing exposition. Also even though some characters are supposedly not real, they still have the habit of dying horrible, extended deaths.Then come the zombies! Oooh boy does this film take forever to get there. They're not the usual gut-munching variety but seem to shamble around slowly looking for people to grab onto and murder with whatever sharp thing is nearby. It turns out they're just as easy to kill as the zombies in any George Romero movie with a shot to the head, but even the well-armed individuals in this film frequently forget to aim for the brain. I know body-squibs are a lot easier than head-squibs, but good grief it's irritating when characters act like total idiots.I've heard of this film described as the triumph of style over content. Fabio Frizzi's score is certainly celebratory and bombastic (including a chorus), but maybe something lower key in a Tangerine Dream/Jay Chattaway variety would have worked better to keep the pace up. THE BEYOND demonstrates excellent cinematography, editing, and direction similar to Fulci's other films from the time. However I can't really forgive how much of a dull mess the experience of watching this film can be without frequent use of the FF button. It's frustrating in that between this, ZOMBIE, CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD, and HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY, there's a high-water-mark of the 80's zombie horror masterpiece somewhere in there if you pluck out elements and trim the fat. It's all over 6 hours of movie with only 80 minutes of it any good.

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.

amesmonde A woman inherits a hotel where one of the seven gates of hell has been opened, she must discover its secret before the world ends.Director Lucio Fulci presents a Louisiana opening set in 1927 in sepia tone, as a lynch mob descend on a hotel. An artist Schweick is busily painting a vast apocalyptic painting in room 36. Thought to be a warlock the artist pleading only he can save them as the hotel is built over the seven doors of hell, is taken to the basement and gruesomely murdered. As a woman reads a prophecy from the book Eibon which sets alight leaving her fate, for the moment unknown, prompting titles over Living Let Die, Terminator 2, burning flames. Incidentally, I also viewed an erroneous bluray version (which the distributor have kindly since sent a corrected copy) where the opening was miss-coloured in a Night of the Living Dead, Universal classic black and white. Regardless of which version the wince enduring killing opens one of the Seven Doors of Death.1981 present day workers go about fixing up the hotel for Liza Merril played by Fulci's City of the Living Dead and The House by the Cemetery actress Catriona MacColl. Its not long before the trades men have a series of accidents and Liza is introduced to David Warbeck's Dr. John McCabe. Fulci pulls no punches, but pulls focus on the camera with close ups of nails blurring our main characters and Sergio Leone-like eye close ups. When plumber Joe arrives at the hotel to stop a flood creepy Martha advises him where to go and it's not long before he uncovers Schweick's reanimated body who pops poor Joe's eyes out.In contrast to Zombie Flesheaters (1979) straight forward story, here writers Dardano Sacchetti, Giorgio Mariuzzo and Fulci explorer a metaphysical concept in which the realms of both the living and the dead bleed together. It spent some time on the UK video nasty list before being removed without prosecution. Though it was released in Europe in 1981, The Beyond did not see a U.S. release until 1983 under the alternate title "Seven Doors of Death." The Beyond is debatably Fulci's finest film, The City of the Dead appears to have been a practice run. The Beyond has a surreal edge, with a milky eyed blind woman (a look that American Horror Story Coven borrowed), a spectre appearing in a road, the woman who assists Liza is none other than the Eibon reading lady from 1927.Cadavers, autopsies, bodies coming back to life, it's all odd creepy stuff. Fulci can be heavy handed at times, notorious jarring cuts, dubbed dialogue nuances synonymous with his work, but The Beyond is finely shot, with top notch composition. It's appears Fulci is paying homage to his idol, the French playwright Antonin Artaud with The Beyond being less about linear plot and more about imagery and symbolism with its exploding windows glassing a man's face, corpse writhing in body bags, creaking gurneys, acid attacks and melting faces oozing blood, it's gruesome practical effects by Giannetto De Rossi retain a timeless horror charm. Cinematography from Sergio Salvati on the backdrop of New Orleans gives it a distinct feel, with jazz playing in the background. The icing on the cake is Fabio Frizzi's piano lead orchestral and vocal chants score which is outstandingly powerful during the eerie scenes and death setups.Liza walks around the oil lamp lit house encounters the blind woman Emily and entities. Of course New Yorker Liza ignores Emily's warnings and won't leave the hotel she's inherited. Shafts of light, dusty rooms, shadows, pianos playing by themselves, creeks may not amount to much, but Fulci build up tensions and jump scares with inexplicable lightening and crusty bony bodies on occasion nailed to the wall. Later while Liza tries to find out more about her hotel and missing book her friend Martin visits the public library to find the hotel's blueprints only to be attacked by a horde of hungry tarantula's who bite at his eyes and face - its gruesome stuff, with icky sound effects. Yes, there's lapses in logic, but it adds to the off beat creeps and sadistic torture and gore it delivers.David Warbeck is great as John (and equals Carlo De Mejo's lead Gerry in City of the Living Dead). John breaks into Emily's house, which appears to have been abandoned for years to find the book Eibon there and you realise, if you already didn't know that Emily is a ghost of sorts. Back at the hotel Martha is killed by zombie Joe (probably still annoyed at Martha inadvertently sending him to his death) and we're headlong into the final act with more dread-filled surrealism. Emily doesn't want to go back to hells gate with Schweick and sets her guide dog onto him and the zombie victims who inexplicably appear and disappear before her own dog turns on her, ripping her throat out in a graphic blood filled scene.To the writers credit the ending to this nightmarish extreme Italian horror is an unconventional brave one as Liza an John flee a hospital overrun by reanimated cadavers. Holding the hyper real effects and scripts shortfalls together are Warbeck's and MacColl's grounded performances. John goes all Dirty Harry shooting at the undead and Schweick's crusty corpse. Rushing down a set of stairs the couple find themselves back in the basement of the hotel and stumble through a labyrinth into a supernatural wasteland of dust and corpses mirroring Schweick's painting. Nihilist endings don't come much better than this - and Fulci simply out does himself. No matter which direction they travel, they find themselves back at their starting point and are ultimately blinded just like Emily stuck in hell - as they dissolve, cue Fabio Frizzi's pounding dramatic score.Excellent atmospheric horror, Fulci at his best.

bbickley13-921-58664 It's the type of horror that makes a midnight screening audience laugh out loud as we watched some brilliantly bad English dubbing. A young woman, runs from evil to the sound of a kick ass Italian rock band, and an Italian filmmakers strange love of eye popping terror (literally eye popping). Demons, ghost and zombies all in the same movie in the back drop of New Orleans. A woman inherits a house in the city that just so happens to be one of the seven gateways to hell, bummer. The plot is a hot mess after that is explained, than the movie becomes a series of kills after kills and the lady being lorded around the house looking for an answer that did not really exist.The death scenes are archetype giallo, very slow with scenes cutting back and forth from the victim to the weapon and then very Gory.But I've seen other movies like Suspiria or zombie that have done this a lot better and less cheesy But at this point , that is the fun of the movieNote worthy 12'O clocker