The Beyond

Lucio Fulci

1981

This is one of the all time great gore films ever made. (& by the way it's also a fantastic horror tale as well) An artist staying in a hotel, discovers one of the seven gate ways to hell and is branded a warlock for his trouble, it's in the past so he's shit out of luck because we know what they did to people like that in those days. Yes he's gruesomely dispatched. Years on the hotel is inherited by a young woman who unwittingly opens it up again. What follows is one of the best films Fulci ever made.

Get a hold of an uncut copy of this baby and hold on tight, because it's awesome stuff! The gore scenes, while sometimes cheesy, are handled so seriously they become very nasty indeed in comparison to something like "Bad Taste's" comic approach. It's dead pan stuff made to shock not amuse and therefore was banned for some time by you know who? (BBFC WANKERS!!). In it's uncut form it's a not to be missed zombie gore fest with some of the best set piece eye-poppings you'll ever see, otherwise it's still watchable but very frustrating !

GORE HIGHLIGHTS

Wow there's loads so here we go ! The opening scene of the film sees the artist being held against a wall, both his wrists are nailed to the wall and the burning acid is thrown in his face which disintegrates and melts away. Joe, the unfortunate plumber gets both his eyes poked out in one of the most gruesome eye violence scenes ever! A woman has her whole face melted off slowly with acid. A guy who's lying paralyzed is attacked by tarantulas, which proceed to rip a chunk out of his lip, his nose, pull one of his eyes from it's socket and rip a chunk out of his tongue. In the best eyeball scene, a woman has her head shoved against a metal spike, the spike goes clean through her head and exits through her eye socket with the eye on the end of it! (Classic Stuff)!! The blind woman is attacked by her own guide dog which takes a huge chunk out of her neck and then rips one of her ears off, in very bloody fashion. A guy has his face mashed by shards of broken glass. A young girl has half of her face blown off by gun shot. Not forgetting all of the gun shot wounds, the zombies getting blown away in various manners and a fantastic ending, where the heroes end up in hell itself. On of the all time top ten titles in every department.