37) L'Aldila - "The Beyond" (1981)

The seven deadly gateways are concealed in seven cursed places. Woe be unto him who ventures near without knowledge.

Director
Lucio Fulci

Cast
Katherine MacColl - Liza Merrill
David Warbeck - Dr. John McCabe
Cinzia Monreale - Emily
Maria Pia Marsala - Jill

Not only is the Italian movie, The Beyond, a true gorefest, it's a gorefest that takes its gory effects seriously and executes them carefully. This movie will make sure the gag inducing scenes will leave an impression on you. It wants the audience to cringe with its extended shots of bloody, foamy, slushy images.
The film starts off in 1927 inside Louisiana's Seven Doors Hotel where a lynch mob is hellbent on finding a painter named Schweick whom they believe to be a warlock.
He's seen painting a disturbing image of a wasteland with dead bodies strewn throughout.
The mob breaks into his room and considers his painting to be part of a ritual. So, they literally nail him to the cold stone wall. Little do they know his murder is reckoned as a human sacrifice necessary to open one of the seven doors to hell the hotel sits upon.
More than fifty years after this event, Liza Merrill (Katherine MacColl - House By The Cemetery), a young woman from New York, takes possession of the hotel and begins renovations to reopen.
In one scene that is nothing short of unsettling and strange, Liza is driving along an empty highway overpass when she comes upon a blind woman standing in the middle of the highway with a German Shepherd dog. This woman, Emily, warns her not to reopen the hotel as doing so will be a big mistake. Of course, Liza moves forward with her plans as Emily sticks around the hotel.  
These renovations open another portal to hell, and souls of the dead begin crossing over, which is never a good time under any circumstance, really.
These damned souls begin manifesting themselves to Liza and others in various and gruesome ways, killing the living in all kinds of crazy ways.
The paranormal events and horrific deaths continue until Liza is forced to confront these demons face to face. 
The Beyond was directed by Lucio Fulci who also directed House by the Cemetery which I previously reviewed. With watching these two Fulci movies, it seems he is a master at unsettling and appetite losing imagery.
The story though was rather muddled and simply not executed well. It lost me towards the second act of the movie. The supernatural element was as clear as day with constant references to the gates of hell that Liza and others unwillingly opened. It's a satisfying premise for a gory movie like this.
This movie had a serious tone to it. In fact, I think it takes itself too seriously with its surreal, otherworldly nature. The story just doesn't live up to the lofty flow and attempt at the dream-like overtones.
I was too caught up in the blood fest and gruesome scenes to pay close enough attention where the movie was going. It looks so real!
Fulci once commented on the lack of understanding many audiences have with his movie.
"People who blame The Beyond for its lack of story have not understood that it's a film of images, which must be received without any reflection. They say it is very difficult to interpret such a film, but it is very easy to interpret a film with threads. Any idiot can understand Molinaro's Le Cage aux Folles, or [John] Carpenter's Escape From New York, while The Beyond or Argento's Inferno are absolute films," he said.
Images indeed. Those images are done well, save for a few minor laughable details that surely a perfectionist would re-shoot to maintain realism. With prolonged shots on one disgusting scene after another, I can see what Fulci means by "film of images."

Maria Pia Marsala as Jill in The Beyond.

Otherwise, the gore is accomplished with artistic care. There's much attention into obtaining the utmost realistic yet practical (at times) special effects.
The superb bloody, foamy, runny, protruding, melting, tearing, steaming realism quality in the gore props is seldom seen in movies from this era.
I recall the scene from Steven Spielberg's Poltergeist (1982) where the researcher's face begins to peel off in the bathroom. It's disturbing, but not nearly as real looking as the gore in The Beyond.
I appreciate the efforts the movie puts forth to tell a story that's not just another ghost story. It's closeups of fear seen on the faces of victims reminds me a little of The Grudge which utilized the same tactic. Fear is in the eyes, and is the savory salt of horror/thriller movies as it helps establish fear in the psyche of the audience. It works when it's done well!
This movie had a few laughable scenes that clearly weren't supposed to be such. In one scene with tarantulas sneaking up on a man who fell off a ladder while sorting through history books and is lying paralyzed on the floor, someone had the "bright" idea to use both real spiders and puppet ones. The contrasting difference stands out like a rubber thumb.
The real tarantulas creep their fat, hairy legs while prop spiders just bounce along barely moving their plastic limbs. But the payoff in that scene, in all its biting and bloody goodness, is well worth it for horror fans. Arachnophobes may want to cover their eyes or leave the room.
Despite the slow pace of  the story, the movie was still entertaining. Where it fails in storytelling, it makes up for in horror, horror, horror. The effort to entertain audiences shines in this movie. And it's worth watching again.