I've been a fan of Italian horror for sometime now, especially Dario Argento's films, and I've been meaning to take a further look at Fulci's work. I'd only seen Zombie, his most well known film, and thought it was pretty good and decided to give The Beyond a watch as some have regarded it as his best film.

The film is about a young women, trying to find a job, inheriting a hotel from a relative and finally having a source of income. Unfortunately, this hotel just so happens to be sitting on top of one of the Seven Gates Of Hell. It doesn't take long for strange occurrences to start happening and people to start dying in creative, gory ways.

The beginning of the film confirmed what I had suspected from Zombie: the key aspect that seperates Argento from Fulci is the overall look of their films. While Argento's films are mostly grand, artsy pictures, Fulci's are raw, down and dirty. The Beyond, like Zombie, is smothered with dull browns and greys. The hotel itself is far from cozy and the basement is flooded and its walls drip with water and slime. The creature's aren't at all pretty to look at either. The zombies are caked with rot and often bear mutilations to their face or body. The film overall is quite atmospheric but in a realistic kind of way and not in an over-the-top Hollywood fashion.

The deaths themselves are quite creative and painful to watch. One of the first deaths in the film involves a pitcher of acid being dumped onto a woman's face flooding the room with her dissolved remains while another death involves a man's face being eaten in graphic detail by large tarantulas (arachnophics will have a heart attack watching this). I was, however, disappointed to see that two of the deaths were ripped off from other movies. The first was actually ripped off from Fulci's own Zombie which involves an eyeball; the scene is slightly different but the effect is the same. The second ripoff death involves a dog turning on its blind master which is a ripoff of fellow Italian filmmaker Dario Argento's Suspiria. Other than that, the death scenes are quite horrific and innovative.

All in all, The Beyond is a decent watch. It is much more complex than Zombie storywise and probably a great deal more gory. The music stands out much more as well. Horror fans looking for something gritty and raw should definitely check this out.

The funny thing is... It's not like Fulci's work wasn't ever ripped off or stolen or still is being stolen to this day.

Truth be known when Argento and Fulci worked on Anegma together they started working on The Beyond, which was going to be a loose follow up to GATES OF HELL/CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD ... only after they realized they couldn't work with eachother did the movie then fall into Fulci's court center stage... For all intense and purposes, Argento stole from Fulci, just like Craven and everyone else does.

Anyways, the movie is brilliant. The ending is fantastic and it lead me to be inspired to write a movie of mine called "Portrait of Pain"... Nothing to do with this movie but the painting at the end was just brilliant!

I think the budget on some of the effects could've been better... The spider scene you seem to think is so great looks like complete donkey dick. Fulci even commented on this and how he fired his FX crew afterwards, on his CAT IN THE BRAIN movie <<Yet another master piece of Fulci's>>

The first death was the lynching of the man back in the old days. The hook in the throat still gets to me and so does the man falling off the ladder, which for some reason gets me more than anything in the movie. I think it's because you can't really see the mans injuries, only blood coming up out of his mouth. It made it look very painful.

The movie is fantastic! I love it. I have 3 copies of it all in different formats. I have "The beyond on Fulci's collection" I have "The Beyond special collectors tin edition" & I have "7 Doors of Death" Most noted in america. It has more intro with the whole lynch mob and all that... Plus he added several extra zombie scenes after people bitched and complained that they had no zombies in the movie but only for 3 minutes. << Some people >>

Anyways, great movie. Go check it out. Go buy it. Just watch it! It's one of Fulci's best works ever... That and Cat in the Brain.