Journey Into the Beyond (1975) Poster

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A minor bad taste classic
gavcrimson5 February 2000
A minor bad taste classic Journey into the Beyond was one of the first shock documentaries directed by Rolf Olsen, a journeyman director whose work includes everything from violent action movies, sexploitation epics and even children's films. An apparent investigation into the fringes of psychic spirituality with so-called real experts, exorcisms and seances, be warned Journey also manages to be a very sleazy cocktail indeed. There's many a grotty scene of real brain tumor removal and animal cruelty. An unforgettable scene offers a Third-World doctor yanking out cancers from his patients using his bare hands and no anaesthetic. Although it seems less outrageous compared to later films of its ilk i.e. the Faces of Death series, Journey turned many people pale in the Seventies. Some prints came with a warning bell to alert viewers of the more vomitous scenes and when it was shown at a Spanish horror film festival in 1978 it had mass walkouts and numerous retchings. Olsen also directed Shocking Asia and its sequel under pseudonyms. The lesser Shocking Asia 2 shares some footage with this movie.
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4/10
John Carradine narrates a shockumentary
kevinolzak2 August 2020
1975's "Journey Into the Beyond" was a more graphic kind of shockumentary, defined in the early 60s by "Mondo Cane" and its brethren. Initially a 113 minute German feature titled "Reinse ins Jenseits - Die Welt des Ubernaturalichen" from veteran director Rolf Olsen, it received stateside release in 1977 at 95 minutes with the narration of the venerable John Carradine, apparently following in the footsteps of fellow fearmongers Vincent Price ("Taboos of the World") and Boris Karloff ("Mondo Balordo"). Its 'R' rating is justly deserved, a large number of gruesome scenes earning a warning bell to hide your eyes, including a bloody bit of dental surgery, as well as removal of cataracts and cysts full of disgusting pus. On the lighter side are sequences depicting psychic phenomena, hypnosis, spiritualism, telekinesis, seances, exorcism, levitation, voodoo, and lastly life after death. We find a rainmaker in Ghana, a childless woman engaged in a fertility rite of spiritual sex, a firewalk in Marina Del Rey conducted by a mystic of Tibetan practices, who then proves himself by inserting knitting needles through his neck and cheeks. It may have lost some of its shock value and may not prove very convincing, but Carradine is fully engaged in transcribing the Paul Ross script, and does lend genuine gravitas to the incredible proceedings. It does tend to drag endlessly over an hour and 45 minutes, and by the 80s more horrid concoctions would be found on your local video shelves.
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10/10
Journey Into Shocumentary Mondo Weirdness
d168414 March 2010
Warning: Spoilers
This movie is a montage depicting "psychic" phenomenon...most obviously fake. It's narrated by the late, great, John Carradine, who lends his gravely growl to the spookiness. The opening depicts man's inhumanity to man, with scenes of starving Bafria children, a man executed by the Viet Cong, atomic bombs, and other cheery stuff.

As for one reviewer saying the film had "so-called real experts"...well, of course there are no experts, they're all fakes. It's like saying a "so-called expert on Leprechauns".

What you'll see is: A dentist who uses hypnosis to perform dental surgery, fake Philipino psychic surgery, fake voodoo levitation in Africa (...or is it? MUHAHAHA), a famous British psychic healer "who never charged for his services", but what the movie failed to mention was he accepted huge donations. There's also an Italian séance where the psychic uses the old regurgitation trick to vomit up cheesecloth...er...ectoplasm.

There's a couple of Christian exorcisms, one takes place at an Anglican church in England. The Priest seems sincerer, and there is an interview with at least one satisfied customer. Although I imagine the girl who's possessed was a plant by the producers who hoodwinked the Priest...after all you can't travel to film an exorcism and not have one. If not, she was the most harmless possessed person ever, flailing about gently on the floor. Then there's a french priest who took in a possessed woman who seems more like a schizophrenic.

For Voodoo lovers, there's a black magic Quimbanda ritual, complete with a black cat getting it's throat cut. Ewwwww. A Ju Ju man in Ghana does some side show tricks, and then "makes it rain". There's even a woman who gets "pregnant by voodoo", although we never see the end result, but I'm sure the producers wouldn't lie.

Petro Hoy does sideshow tricks to "prove" his psychic powers, including fire-walking and shoving a knitting needle through his cheeks. There's also some "professional" parasychological stuff, including kirilian video photography (which has been debunked) and someone who can "astrally project" via a rather complicated test (because they're easier to beat). If you blink you'll miss an interview with occult/psychic book author David St. Clair, which lasts about 10 seconds.

And there's lots more, Italian psychic healers, a medium that convinces her cult she can contact their loved ones (also Italian), the "Integreton", which is basically a big wooden building that spins around, an astronaut that became an astro-nut, gratuitous gory scenes, etc., An expose on psychic phenomenon this isn't. But just use common sense, and you'll see through most of it.
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I want to see it
ikonoklasta20035 January 2006
Hi, I'm from Mexico. I wish to know where I can buy this movie or if a member of the forum would sell it to me. I like these kind of movies because this is an age "no caffeine" and seems like the blood, sex, violence... in a word, the real world are banned on the screens. But of course, war in Iraq is cool and no bloody, poor people on the streets are invisible and power abuse is just "fiction themes". Directors like Rolf Olsen bring us the real world, raw, crude, naked, but the true world on we live. Why? Because we can change it, but first we must know it...

Thanks, and sorry my bad English
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