A woman inherits a hotel in Louisiana and that's about the last time the plot makes sense in 1981's The Beyond (E tu vivrai nel terrore! L'aldilà). Italian horror movies of the period generally don't have the most logical plots but this one feels especially like just a stream of consciousness series of scenes, some of which borrow heavily from earlier Italian horror films.
It's also gratuitously and unconvincingly gory. It's kind of admirable the confidence with which director Lucio Fulci lingers on a shot of an obviously papier-mache head splurting cherry slurpee. But The Beyond has its good points, too, mainly in its cinematography by Sergio Salvati and the ideas behind some of those random scenes.
I love this one. Liza (Catriona MacColl) is driving down a featureless road with empty sea on either side. She comes upon a blind woman named Emily (Cinzia Monreale) standing in the middle of the road with her dog.
It's positively Caitlin R. Kiernan-esque.
I wonder where this road is. Many exteriors were obviously shot in New Orleans and interiors were as obviously shot in Italy on soundstages.
I especially love the hotel's basement. After they tear open a space that had been bricked up, there's a space with planks of wood over water the movie keeps coming back to. I love the lighting and design of this place.
So much of this movie reminds me of playing Doom and Quake in a very pleasant way.
The Beyond is available on Shudder, a seven day free trial of which I'm currently trying to milk for all it's worth.
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