I tried to enjoy this one for what it was supposed to be. Really I did. A made-to-be-bad gore-fest, light on plot and lighter on characterization. A true B-movie, even if it didn't turn out to be the "masterwork" of the genre some people claim. I'd seen a Fulci film before--'The House by the Cemetery'--and been singularly unimpressed, but even Fulci fans have panned that one and 'The Beyond' is widely regarded as his best work. So if nothing else, I was expecting at least a step up from 'House.' No such luck.
Lots of blood, lots of guts and fancy (for the time period) special effects, but not a lot of substance to either. And that's what's really wrong with this movie. When the plot and characters are already throwaways, what's left when the "gore" fails?
You see, I have a hard time considering what Fulci does to be "gore." For me, that implies at least some level of realism, and Fulci offers anything but that. I'm not even a gore hound, and I find his efforts in that area to be pathetic. The warlock's wounds don't correspond to the weapons used to inflict them; the splatter in other scenes is entirely inconsistent with the actual flow of blood, trickling, spurting, trickling then suddenly OMG SPRAYING IN GUSHES... all from the same wound. Somehow a three inch nail manages to pass all the way through a woman's skull and poke out her eyeball from behind, spearing it three inches out from the socket. Somehow. (Fulci seems to have some kind of fixation with the stabbing of eyeballs--which would be fine, if he could ever get it right. Which, of course, he can't.) Any time Fulci gets going with one of his "gory" scenes, I just end up laughing. I can't bring myself to take it seriously at all.
In addition, Fulci has NO idea how to build tension or suspense. He seems to think that the longer he draws out the buildup to a kill, the more suspenseful it is, and the longer he draws out a kill, the scarier it is. In reality, all he manages to do is leave you so bored with the buildup that you don't care about the kill by the time he gets around to it, and so bored with the kill itself by the time the character finally dies that you're long past caring about the kill's function in the story. You just wish he'd get on with it already.
When you add to that the fact that Fulci can't seem to do ANYTHING original, just copy scenes from other, more talented directors' films ('The Beyond' features yet another 'Suspiria' rip, the seeing-eye dog attack) and redo them poorly with his ridiculous brand of "gore," there's just no redeeming value to this film, or any film of his that I've seen so far.
One star only because 0 wasn't an option.
Lots of blood, lots of guts and fancy (for the time period) special effects, but not a lot of substance to either. And that's what's really wrong with this movie. When the plot and characters are already throwaways, what's left when the "gore" fails?
You see, I have a hard time considering what Fulci does to be "gore." For me, that implies at least some level of realism, and Fulci offers anything but that. I'm not even a gore hound, and I find his efforts in that area to be pathetic. The warlock's wounds don't correspond to the weapons used to inflict them; the splatter in other scenes is entirely inconsistent with the actual flow of blood, trickling, spurting, trickling then suddenly OMG SPRAYING IN GUSHES... all from the same wound. Somehow a three inch nail manages to pass all the way through a woman's skull and poke out her eyeball from behind, spearing it three inches out from the socket. Somehow. (Fulci seems to have some kind of fixation with the stabbing of eyeballs--which would be fine, if he could ever get it right. Which, of course, he can't.) Any time Fulci gets going with one of his "gory" scenes, I just end up laughing. I can't bring myself to take it seriously at all.
In addition, Fulci has NO idea how to build tension or suspense. He seems to think that the longer he draws out the buildup to a kill, the more suspenseful it is, and the longer he draws out a kill, the scarier it is. In reality, all he manages to do is leave you so bored with the buildup that you don't care about the kill by the time he gets around to it, and so bored with the kill itself by the time the character finally dies that you're long past caring about the kill's function in the story. You just wish he'd get on with it already.
When you add to that the fact that Fulci can't seem to do ANYTHING original, just copy scenes from other, more talented directors' films ('The Beyond' features yet another 'Suspiria' rip, the seeing-eye dog attack) and redo them poorly with his ridiculous brand of "gore," there's just no redeeming value to this film, or any film of his that I've seen so far.
One star only because 0 wasn't an option.