Why has this not been re-issued......?
Added 8/2/2008
Every single lucio fulci film has been re-issued but this,anchor bay blue-underground please re-issue this classic fulci film with tons of extras im tired of waiting.great film very creepy.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Solid, but flawed
Added 4/14/2008
When it comes to Lucio Fulci I always say either you'll love him or you'll hate him. Fulci's style isn't for everyone; some will hail him as a master of horror and others as a no talent hack who can only deliver on the gore. I do understand both sides of the argument; Fulci's splatter era while fun films were often very incoherent, which does at times bring the product down.
I'm a pretty big fan of Lucio Fulci, but people often forget he was a filmmaker who can actually tell a story that makes sense and that is very suspenseful without the over the top gore his later films would feature. Seven Notes in Black AKA The Psychic and Don't Torture a Duckling are prime examples of his talents as a filmmaker that I urge even people who have disliked his work to search for. The Beyond is hailed by many as his masterpiece, but I still go with Don't Torture a Duckling.
As I've gone back and searched for Fulci's early to mid 70s work I have found myself starting to lose patience with his splatter era. Movies I once loved I now think are alright and I say to myself what happened to this filmmaker who did such amazing work? The Beyond does suffer from the typical 80s Fulci problem. The plot is very incoherent and nothing ever is really explained thus making it for me a little frustrating.
If you want gore though you will very much find it here. Giannetto De Rossi did the gore F/X and this just might be his very best work of his amazing career. You have eyes being ripped out, a face melted by acid, tongues ripped out, ears ripped off a throat ripping that features a fountain of blood and gun blast to the head, which leads the head being blown to pieces. This is where the reputation of The Beyond stems from; this just might be Fulci's goriest and the F/X are just as good as any out there and are a million times better than any CGI.
But the fact so little is explained plot wise does for me take away from the film. The screenplay written by Dardano Sacchetti, Giorgio Mariuzzo & Lucio Fulci isn't very good. This might be a low budget 80s horror flick, but still not a logical excuse. While the plot is interesting nothing is ever really explained. The characters are quite stupid, some more than others and while there is a hint of a plot had things been better explained it easily would have made up for any flaws.
As director Lucio Fulci does put together some nice scenes of suspense and his gore shots are wonderful. Fulci's most popular run is from 79-82 and while this is one of his stronger outings from that era I wouldn't rate it as one of the best. While The House by the Cemetery might be just as incoherent that one has an eerie feel that I felt was lacking at times here. That's not to say there isn't any suspense and or tension, there's plenty of that, but I just felt it was lacking at times.
The late David Warbeck played Dr. John McCabe and has to be one of the dumbest characters I've seen. And when I say dumb, I don't mean in a fun way. He shoots the zombies in the body than finally does a headshot, which kills the zombies. The next few are headshots than for whatever reason he begins to shoot them in the body than the head. That was just damn annoying.
Warbeck though does a solid job despite playing a rather idiotic character. The rest of the cast is also good; one time Fulci regular Katherine MacColl stars along with Antoine Saint-John, Cinzia Monreale (under the name Sarah Keller) and Fulci regular Al Cliver.
The Beyond despite all the flaws does make for a fun time. The pacing is pretty good so you'll never be bored and the gore is simply amazing. This one is insanely gory. Like I said I do enjoy The Beyond and I do very much enjoy Fulci's splatter flicks, but after watching some of his earlier work and seeing what a terrific filmmaker he was (not to say he wasn't in the 80s), but after seeing how he can tell a coherent story that was well written my patience aren't what they once were with his splatter era. But again despite any flaws The Beyond remains one his stronger efforts and makes for a great double feature with City of the Living Dead as both deal with the gates of hell.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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Beware of "All Region Imports"!!!!!!
Added 1/8/2008
This review is for the Anchor Bay DVD edition.
This film is the best and is a gorehound's fantasy, literally. But beware of the edited versions! The original UNCUT version on DVD is manufactured by ANCHOR BAY and Anchor Bay only. It is 87 minutes in run time. It is severely out of print.
If you come across a copy of The Beyond for sale that advertises itself as an import, especially if it is from Korea. These versions vary in run time but are usually cut by a few minutes. I have one that is 84 minutes long, but the cover artwork and special features are identical to the Anchor Bay version.
The "Seven Doors of Death" version of The Beyond is about 83 minutes long. The edited versions have alot of the gore cut out of them. For example, the eye-gouging scene, the spider attack, and the whipping and acid attack scenes have been shortened, as well as other parts.
Bootlegging of The Beyond on DVD is rampant because the film is such a classic and so incredibly hard to find in it's uncut version. Somebody needs to reissue this movie uncut. Most of the other Italian gore films have been reissued by other companies. Anchor Bay doesn't seem interested in horror films anymore, and most of their recent releases are NEW movies, usually poorly made direct-to-DVD stuff. It is quite frustrating.
2 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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...on that day the dead will walk the earth
Added 10/29/2007
I almost fainted when I found this movie at the used video store. Just in time for Halloween! Something from the beyond must have been calling me.
Now this evil little classic lives up to the hype and then some. It's filled with horrific visuals. Chains whipping chunks of human flesh from the bone. Eye gouging. Faces getting mutilated by--okay, I've already said too much. If you're a fan of zombie movies and extreme horror, do your best to get your hands on this as soon as possible.
Become part of the infection.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Cult indeed
Added 5/12/2007
Getting the obvious out of the way, this is a movie for B Horror splatter fans, not for mainstream horror audiences. This movie, like Fulci's other films, places emphasis on graphic depiction of gore material, while paying little to no attention to plot, script, or acting. He definitely succeeds in giving zombie fans what they want, however if you expect anything more you will be disappointed. The script was particularly bad, and not in a cheesy-but-good B movie sort of way, but riddled with inconsistencies and occasionally just plain dumb. Like for example in the hospital scene with all the zombies it's obvious that the only way to take them down is to shoot them in the head, yet the guy wastes 3-4 bullets on a single zombie, gets it with a headshot, and then repeats the same pattern numerous times. Sure enough he runs out of bullets sooner than he wishes to. Acting is pretty bad too, not very credible at all. You have the typical protagonist who's seeing things others aren't, and of course those things aren't there when someone else checks it out, yet the character doesn't sound convincing at all when she's trying to explain that those things really are there and it's not her imagination. You can almost tell someone told her what to say just minutes before and she's struggling to remember. To summarize, this movie is underdeveloped but thrives on its gore factor which is fairly elevated all things taken into consideration. Don't leave this one out of your zombie film collection.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Why has this not been re-issued......?
Added 8/2/2008
Every single lucio fulci film has been re-issued but this,anchor bay blue-underground please re-issue this classic fulci film with tons of extras im tired of waiting.great film very creepy.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Solid, but flawed
Added 4/14/2008
When it comes to Lucio Fulci I always say either you'll love him or you'll hate him. Fulci's style isn't for everyone; some will hail him as a master of horror and others as a no talent hack who can only deliver on the gore. I do understand both sides of the argument; Fulci's splatter era while fun films were often very incoherent, which does at times bring the product down.
I'm a pretty big fan of Lucio Fulci, but people often forget he was a filmmaker who can actually tell a story that makes sense and that is very suspenseful without the over the top gore his later films would feature. Seven Notes in Black AKA The Psychic and Don't Torture a Duckling are prime examples of his talents as a filmmaker that I urge even people who have disliked his work to search for. The Beyond is hailed by many as his masterpiece, but I still go with Don't Torture a Duckling.
As I've gone back and searched for Fulci's early to mid 70s work I have found myself starting to lose patience with his splatter era. Movies I once loved I now think are alright and I say to myself what happened to this filmmaker who did such amazing work? The Beyond does suffer from the typical 80s Fulci problem. The plot is very incoherent and nothing ever is really explained thus making it for me a little frustrating.
If you want gore though you will very much find it here. Giannetto De Rossi did the gore F/X and this just might be his very best work of his amazing career. You have eyes being ripped out, a face melted by acid, tongues ripped out, ears ripped off a throat ripping that features a fountain of blood and gun blast to the head, which leads the head being blown to pieces. This is where the reputation of The Beyond stems from; this just might be Fulci's goriest and the F/X are just as good as any out there and are a million times better than any CGI.
But the fact so little is explained plot wise does for me take away from the film. The screenplay written by Dardano Sacchetti, Giorgio Mariuzzo & Lucio Fulci isn't very good. This might be a low budget 80s horror flick, but still not a logical excuse. While the plot is interesting nothing is ever really explained. The characters are quite stupid, some more than others and while there is a hint of a plot had things been better explained it easily would have made up for any flaws.
As director Lucio Fulci does put together some nice scenes of suspense and his gore shots are wonderful. Fulci's most popular run is from 79-82 and while this is one of his stronger outings from that era I wouldn't rate it as one of the best. While The House by the Cemetery might be just as incoherent that one has an eerie feel that I felt was lacking at times here. That's not to say there isn't any suspense and or tension, there's plenty of that, but I just felt it was lacking at times.
The late David Warbeck played Dr. John McCabe and has to be one of the dumbest characters I've seen. And when I say dumb, I don't mean in a fun way. He shoots the zombies in the body than finally does a headshot, which kills the zombies. The next few are headshots than for whatever reason he begins to shoot them in the body than the head. That was just damn annoying.
Warbeck though does a solid job despite playing a rather idiotic character. The rest of the cast is also good; one time Fulci regular Katherine MacColl stars along with Antoine Saint-John, Cinzia Monreale (under the name Sarah Keller) and Fulci regular Al Cliver.
The Beyond despite all the flaws does make for a fun time. The pacing is pretty good so you'll never be bored and the gore is simply amazing. This one is insanely gory. Like I said I do enjoy The Beyond and I do very much enjoy Fulci's splatter flicks, but after watching some of his earlier work and seeing what a terrific filmmaker he was (not to say he wasn't in the 80s), but after seeing how he can tell a coherent story that was well written my patience aren't what they once were with his splatter era. But again despite any flaws The Beyond remains one his stronger efforts and makes for a great double feature with City of the Living Dead as both deal with the gates of hell.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
Beware of "All Region Imports"!!!!!!
Added 1/8/2008
This review is for the Anchor Bay DVD edition.
This film is the best and is a gorehound's fantasy, literally. But beware of the edited versions! The original UNCUT version on DVD is manufactured by ANCHOR BAY and Anchor Bay only. It is 87 minutes in run time. It is severely out of print.
If you come across a copy of The Beyond for sale that advertises itself as an import, especially if it is from Korea. These versions vary in run time but are usually cut by a few minutes. I have one that is 84 minutes long, but the cover artwork and special features are identical to the Anchor Bay version.
The "Seven Doors of Death" version of The Beyond is about 83 minutes long. The edited versions have alot of the gore cut out of them. For example, the eye-gouging scene, the spider attack, and the whipping and acid attack scenes have been shortened, as well as other parts.
Bootlegging of The Beyond on DVD is rampant because the film is such a classic and so incredibly hard to find in it's uncut version. Somebody needs to reissue this movie uncut. Most of the other Italian gore films have been reissued by other companies. Anchor Bay doesn't seem interested in horror films anymore, and most of their recent releases are NEW movies, usually poorly made direct-to-DVD stuff. It is quite frustrating.
2 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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