I think Zombi 2 is (in regular-type movie circles at least) pretty underrated. Sure, the dubbing is bad, and that one guy sounds a lot like Roddy McDowell, but the look of the movie (not the make-up stuff, that was average) was great, and the eyeball scene was fantastically done.

But The Beyond is shit. Pure shit.

you're being alittle harsh and overracting. To say Seven Doors of death is pure shit, it sounds ignorant. when they're is a million times worse horror movies.

Can you have 'impure shit'?

I suppose you could if you added something to it like, er...flowers, or shoe laces or something.

But then would this 'impure shit' be actually better?
As by definition 'pure shit', is a very horrible thing.

Hmmmmm.......

Are you on crack??? :confused: LOL

there is worse ..

but there was so much build up for this movie .. things i'd read - peoples opinions ...
i was taken aback when i finally saw it ..

maybe it has historical significance ? I dunno, i just thought like STE that it was a poor film.

I know a guy who is a profesional film critique and horror mag contributer..as well as a musician who has scored a horror flick and does only horror themed music ... this guy liked the movie so much he has an Eibon tattoo on the back of his neck.

I think there must be a way to look at this for it to be good, but i cant find it ..it seemed amateurish and sloppy.
Notably the first time that i really couldnt find anything to enjoy despite how much i love italian horror.

I'll watch it again - who knows maybe I'll find something the 2nd time around now that my expectations are much lower

And how exactly does it sound ignorant? I happen to think the movie is shit. There are movies that are worse, yes, but that doesn't make this movie any better.

If you look at the film for what it is; a very low budget "B" movie. Fulci and Argento have a knack for creating SFX that are more inline with the bigger budget films of the same era. They don't spent the money on highly paid actors, locations etc, but do produce effective movies.

If you try to compare movies such as Seven Doors of Death with big budget movies like The Exorcist you will almost always be unhappy. It took me awhile to accept the Italian movies, thinking they were all bad, because I would always compare them to the bigger budget, U.S. made movies.

I finally figured out that I was missing a big part of good horror by excluding what I automatically thought was terrrible movies if they were Italian.

This is why I compared it to Zombi 2 so much. They're in the same sub-genre, league, whatever you want to call it, so there's no bullshit excuse for Seven Doors of Death/The Beyond to be so bad when Zombi 2 is so good.

Although, the "you can't compare it to big-budget movies" line doesn't hold up so well anymore anyways.

Especially if you consider comparing it with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre , Evil Dead, The Last House On the Left, The Hills Have Eyes and Halloween, all low budget horror films. And all are infinitely better than The Beyond. So the low budget shit isn't working. There were hundreds of low budget horror movies made during the mid/late 70's, early 80's. And a lot of them were really great.

I like it, but don't consider it good. I have only watched it once, and was unmoved, but I'll watch it again just to see if there's more to it.

actually i was comparing it to other low budget italian thrillers .. which i have always liked.

I was looking around and saw a couple of things about this film ..
One - Fulchi is quoted as saying that it was a film with no plot .. just a series of images.
I totally agree and it went a long way to explain why i didnt like it .. it rambled.

Two - the hospital finale was tacked on as an afterthought .. to appeal the German zombie craze that was going on at the time.
and thats just how it felt to me ..

Actually everything felt 'tacked on' like one of those houses in the country .. where people keep adding rooms on rooms .. and end up with a mess.

I can appreciate that it was low budget $400,000 - but there are a lot of other low budget films i dont like .. for the same reasons.

"The Beyond" is a mind fuck and it's meant to be. it's like an abstract waking nightmare.

And it has fantastic atmosphere, stunning cinematography and set design, bizarre plot (but one that works), excellent music and some choice gore and set pieces.

Sure, some FX look dodgy (SPIDERS!) but overall this has some of the best Euro splatter ever seen.
From the nasty as hell chain whipping (that whole opening just DRIPS classy atmospheric horror!) to the truly outstanding, head explosion...this sucker delivers.

Delightfully messy zombies and some auperb visuals (the blind girl on the bridge, the dead taking over the hotel as the lights in each room come on) cap off this CLASSIC slice of Fulci.

This is good to know - I have it in my queue with Netflix! Really looking forward to seeing it now.

That is such a cool scene. The best in the movie. Very creepy. :)

still haven't gotten around to seeing the beyond, is it worth a look? actually the only two fulci films i'm familiar with are zombi and the gates of hell (if i remember correctly). i've just been very hesitant to watch them since most are poorly rated.

well, you can see how divided the opinions are .. i definately recommend you check it out and see what your own conclusion is ..

i didnt like it but i was glad i saw it ... if that makes any sense.

I can think of soooo many movies that aplies to for me....I kow exactly what you mean.

moo

I guess the question is: Did you like the two Fulci movies you´ve seen? If yes, then i think that "The beyond" could be something for you. If no, then stay the hell away from it!!! ;) :cool:

And if you can´t remember any of them, then i can only agree with Urgeok. Give it a shot. :)

okness, then

The film is definately adult horror -

That is not to say the gory set pieces might not appeal to teenagers, but on the whole The Beyond is true horror in that it demands you accept it on its own terms - it's essentially about a few people being stuck in an environment of ghastly crumbling zombies and that's it.

For those who want substance over style all the time and need a more coherent plot to satisfy their fathoming-out skills of the film... The Beyond will likely rub you up the wrong way.

CORRECT

bitches!

Which makes this all the more irritating. As I've said, Fulci is/can be a really good director. He has an eye for great shots. But the movie just doesn't work. Even as a "surreal mind fuck". I can forgive the bad effects, the real problems are in the writing. It's like Sacchetti said "I want this character to be killed by tarantulas...no, NO! I want him to be EATEN ALIVE by tarantulas...but how to get him there...hell with it, I'll just have them show up." Stuff like that and the acting just kills the movie

I don't see your point.

The whole thing is about supernatural events. Hardly anything is 'solid' and based on reality.
How can you apply logic to what is a supernatural tale?

The zombies appear and dissapear as well. The plans of the house change, the blind girl comes and goes, the bathtub changes from full of grime and a zombie to being clean and empty and spiders appear and then vanish.

A tree attcks a woman in "The Evil Dead". Does that make any sense at all?
No...because it's a supernatural film and as such ANYTHING can happen.

And although this is NOT JUST a gore film, it does indeed have gore set-pieces (like some films have shoot-outs or car chases) and so these set-pices are made to be as OTT and crowd pleasing as possible.

And having a guy (in the middle of a seemingly normal, daylit public space where the very idea of flesh eating spiders is so unexpected! Which is again a GREAT aspect of the scene) having his face eaten by spiders is just that.....OTT and crowd pleasing.

You can't apply logic to one scene when the WHOLE film is full of logic defying supernatural events.
Which is the point of the film anyway.

Yeah get em'!

There has to be SOME kind of set of rules. If just anything can happen then it takes away from it. I'm not asking it to be a realistic, serious horror. We've got Open Water for that. All I'm asking is that they give their omnipotent evil some abilities, some restrictions, and stick to them. Because if it can just do whatever it wants and make anything appear, then the movie isn't nearly as interesting. It could just kill anybody any time, and it's apparently really stupid because it DOESN'T kill all the people who will/could get in its way. It makes tarantulas appear. Why? Why tarantulas? Why then and not earlier? Why doesn't it sic latex-eating tarantulas on the main girl? Or the Henry Fonda/Sean Bean hybrid main guy? Why doesn't it use something that kills the person a bit more effectively? Like one of those big snakes? This has nothing to do with the evil's abilities, but why does the guy just lay there? It's been a little while, so I can't remember if he was knocked out, cause I seem to remember him seeing the tarantulas. Why hasn't anything happened until now? Why does it take so long to fulfil its plan? Why does it make people go blind?

The tree rape made perfect sense in the context of the movie. The disembodied force had taken control (or posessed, whatever) the forest when the tape was played. It could control the trees. It had the trees rape the girl, which probably had something to do with her getting posessed. The Evil couldn't just do whatever it wanted whenever it wanted. That would have ruined the movie.

you seem to be taking this very personally

You hurt my feeling's..... [tear] :( .

No I thought you would like the movie. I personally don't think it was fair about how much you hated it. I agree with you a lot of times but I think you were being alittle harsh too a decent movie.

If it were all the way bad, it would have been decent. Like I said, the thing that makes me really dislike the movie is that it shows signs of real talent from Fulci. He has a good eye, and it shows. He could have made a movie that was a LOT better than this. I'm not saying he should've just made regular type "legit" movies. But he could have. And it's the fact that the movie could have been a lot better that makes it so bad. Has nothing to do with the talent involved or the budget or any of that. Even a movie with a great director and a great cast can suck etc. I know all that. But this movie shows signs that this movie could have been better regardless of who was involved, and THAT'S why I'm so hard on it. If it showed no signs that it could have been any better, I would probably have given it a little higher of a rating.



And no, I don't hate it. You will never see me say that I hate a movie except North. I love movies, and no matter how much I may dislike a movie, I still have a little tiny spot in my heart for it, just like I do for every other movie ever made. I do not like Seven Doors of Death. I gave it about 1/5, if that, and probably won't watch it except when I review it for my upcoming (?) site. I just plain don't like it. But I love it nonetheless. I don't hate ANY movie. Except North.

You don't hate Any movie besides North. I hate fuckin' TONS of movies! Like the TCM remake

Oh, I don't like tons of movies. I agree that the TCM remake was a horrible, horrible movie. It was just this awful, shitty movie. But I don't hate it. I love movies too much to hate any of them. Except, as I said, North.

Not necessarily -

With Lucio Fulci's films in particular, he asks the viewer to make a leap of faith in trusting his stories not to be incoherent or nonsensical - you can tell they are crafted with such love that you will put logic aside for 90 minutes and just go along for the ride.

From personal experience, this does not come easy - renting some of his (albeit BBFC censored) movies as a teenager I didn't like them at all; something to do with shoddy acting/dubbing and random plotting didn't make me feel very clever when watching them.

However, as time goes by and the more skillfully acted, tightly plotted, downright boring commercial movies have come and gone from my viewing schedule, going back to the likes of The Beyond and City of the Living Dead brings back the childlike appreciation of horror that makes Fulci's movies so special.

Fulci's stories do play by rules - his own. Just accepting the frequent lapses in logic are not down to laziness but rather over enthusiasm is a good start - but I think too many viewers treat "daft" scenes as insulting to their intelligence and to this end Lucio is never going to be a favourite.

But if there are no rules in the movie then it doesn't matter what happens in it. And if the point is just to have cool deaths, then have cool deaths. The deaths in the movie either go on forever or are lame and predictable. And almost all of them are contrived. The spiders, the conveniently placed acid, the fall from the improbably wide scaffolding, the super-predictable dog attack. They all suck.

They don't even say WHAT the omnipotent evil is. It's just that something is making this happen. Okay, something's doing it. What? It's the kind of thing you can't keep from the audience. Just give me something. Even if it's lame, just give me SOMETHING.

actually the acid wasnt conveniently placed at all .. it was quite a distance away .. that scene drove me nuts.

Fulchi had a limited budget ,, he had some ideas to do some fun little kills so he shot them and losely wove them together with this doorway to hell idea. - at least thats what it looked like to me.

to me it felt like a high budget student film .. a bunch of ideas thrown together. Its easy to go back and say 'its not supposed to make any sense'
I bet the guys that made Ishtar would like to use that excuse.
"it wasn't supposed to be funny'

I can appreciate that there is some nice camera work, some good lighting, etc .. but the whole tossed salad approach didnt work for me at all.

and the thing is .. i like surreal abstract films .. i just didnt get any sense of the atmosphere in this film that most people rave about.

i get the impression that the reason people praise this film so much .. is the little girl getting her head blown off .. its the one constant people keep mentioning in all of the fan sites as the coolest thing in the film.

Then again I guess you get the wrong 'impression' or are simply saying people think like you.

There have been numerous reasons mentioned for why people like this film.
NUMEROUS reasons...and reasons that have been backed up.

In a film that has 'gore scenes' as a big (but not ONLY) part of it's make-up then these scenes are important and if they are good they get praised. And the gilrs head scene IS good. Very good.

but is that the only reason people like this film? No, and I have seen NO ONE on here make such a statement. It's simply been mentioned as one of the many positives in the film.

Just as any fan of "Scanners" will mention ITS head explosion.

Just as any fan of "Dawn of the Dead" mentions ITS head explosion.

Just as any fan of "Day of the Dead" will mention Rhodes being ripped in half.

And just like "The Beyond"....they are all valid strengths and highlights to mention.
BUT just like "The Beyond", they are not the ONLY reasons why people like these films.

I don't

I meant conveniently placed so that it would spill all over her head. Isn't that the kind of thing you DON'T put in places like that? And if it was quite a distance away then it's convenient that she went all that distance in her state of panic or whatever right to the vat of easily spilled acid

Really. Well the example still works otherwise you would have quoted the other 2 examples as well.

And as good as every discussion about "Day of the Dead" i have seen goes on about the FX and especially Rhode's death.
I guess that's the only reason anyone bothers to watch "day of the Dead" as well. :rolleyes:

Like i said, ALL gory films have their gory scenes highlighted and if well done they are much liked and talked about.
So this is a non-arguement as far as "The Beyond" goes.

And just because they are mentioned does not prove that they are the ONLY reason people like the film.
And i have yet to read anything that says the opposite.

I'm not a fan of Day of the Dead and all I've seen from Scanners is the head exploding

it would be tough for me to reccomend Scanners to just anyone ...
I like it - i saw it when it was new .. vintage cronenberg .. but fans of horror today might find it a bit off. the lead is pretty wooden .. he wasnt really an actor - he was a visual artist.
Somehow - for me - the less than polished performances in cronenbergs earlier films make them work .. make them seem more real. (especially Shivers)

he was the ultimate 70's horror film maker for me ..gritty and creepy.

i guess i'm saying .. check it out ... just prepare yourself for a less than polished look and feel..
(again, this is why i like it)

There's a lot of talk about seeking meaning and consistency in Fulci's films... but where does it stop?

If one scene is explained away and grudgingly accepted by detractors, they will inevitably pick fault with another.

It is a troublesome approach to indulging in 1970's/80's exploitation - if you are likely to praise, say, The Last House on the Left or I Spit on Your Grave for their "gritty realism", but are unable to accept The Beyond's world of fantastic scenarios and stretched logic then perhaps a really good drama with nasty bits is all you're after.

I think there are essentially two camps - those who don't like Fulci's refusal (or inability) to pander to his audience's logical expectations, and those who see this trait as a virtue and put it all down to wonderful over enthusiasm.

You can't narrow it down to two camps. I'm fully willing to accept this, but only if it's done well. In The Beyond it wasn't.