“No, my idea was to make an absolute film, with all the horrors of our world,” so says the Italian maestro of gore, Lucio Fulci, when questioned about his masterpiece, E tu vivrai nel terrore – L’aldilà (literally, “And you will live in the terror – the afterlife”), more commonly known as The Beyond or, in its truncated version–which should be avoided at all costs–The Seven Doors of Death.
The Beyond is a film that you either love or hate. Of the nay sayers, the common complaint is that the film doesn’t make sense, a.k.a. doesn’t have a plot. However, I found myself, after watching the movie the first time, fascinated because I felt there was something there that I wasn’t getting. The film seemed controlled, especially via the directorial priority of returning to two specific locations throughout the film atop the numeric and symbolic markers used as signposts, and thus, as I reflected over what I’d seen, I realized that the mood, à la atmosphere, was what had me in its grip. Much like Rosemary’s Baby, while I was watching the movie, it didn’t have much of an effect, but as time wore on, the more I thought about it, the better it got in retrospect.
This is what I refer to as a masterful piece of filmmaking–a gradual impact of effect verses a quick death of firecracker excitement.
To go back and address the concern of the work not having a plot: I will state that while up-and-coming filmmakers during Fulci’s time studied film, he buddied up with philosophy students (or so the rumor goes) and, along the way, found a kindred spirit in the writings of French philosopher Anton Artaud. Artaud was famous for his creating of the “Theater of Cruelty” which refused to allow a play to merely remain on the stage, it included its audience in the production. From this, it isn’t hard to see what Fulci took away from this idea: To be confused creates fear and the disjointed nature of the non-linear plot offsets the narrative balance and further adds to the chaos. Or at least, that’s how I see it and that’s what Fulci does in this movie better than he does in any of his other works.
I recently sat down and watched the film again and discovered that my initial perplexity after first watching the movie, compounded by the complaints about the lack of a coherent plot influencing my impression of the work, created a preconceived veil and that, indeed, a plot does exist. I do not mean to imply that the events depicted in the movie are crystal clear, but it is not a merely collection of random images as many people claim. No, you can’t put in The Beyond and not pay attention to it as you would, say, a Friday the 13th. The narrative is loosely bound. It does proceed in a linear order but the characters aren’t evenly followed nor are they overtly accounted for in relation to why they exist or what purpose they serve (much like people in everyday society).
The film opens in 1927 in a hotel in New Orleans. The entire scene is cast in a sepia hue in order to promote the dated nature of the events we are witnessing (as well as establishing a theme for the climax) as we watch as a painter by the name of Schweick (Antoine Saint-John), who looks remarkably like Artaud, is tore from his canvas as he becomes victim to a lynch mob, which subsequently crucifies him on grounds of his Satanism. We are then brought to present day, that is 1981, were Liza (Catriona MacColl) has inherited the Mandanville Seven Doors Hotel and is attempting to remodel it with the intention of reopening to the public. However, when Joe the plumber (Giovanni De Nava) goes into the basement to fix a leak of monumental proportions, he is met by a decomposed corpse and that’s that, as they say, because he inadvertently opens one of the seven gates of Hell. Liza then recruits John McCabe (David Warbeck) to make sense of the ensuing chaos. What remains is a succession of images which are dazzling, grueling, yet possess a dark ambience which revolve around Schweick’s reappearance, Joe’s resurrection, as well as the presence of a blind woman named Emily (Cinzia Monreale) who escaped Hell in an attempt to save Liza from what is to come. The unease produced by the events we are witnessing is further compounded by the ambiguity spurred on by the possibility that what is occurring may or may not be the product of Liza’s confusion. However, by the close of the film, we find the two main characters inadvertently entering into Schweick’s painting (as we return to the sepia tonalities once more), presumably a depiction of Hell itself, as they attempt to flee those passing through the gate. Fulci’s statement that, “Life is often a really terrible nightmare and that our only refuge is to remain in this world, but outside of time,” comes to a penultimate climax.
Many of the people who didn’t care for the movie cite what they believe to be many of the idiosyncrasies throughout, such as how the zombie in the basement, if it was Schweick of yesteryear, got into the basement (a basement in New Orleans–p-shaw!). However, a parallel scene is presented (and this leads me to think it isn’t an inadvertent oversight on either count) when Joe reappears after his death, not in the basement where he died, but in the room where Schweick was crucified . . . hmmm. Then there’s poor McCabe that, after firing several rounds into various undead bodies only to discover that to dispatch the creatures you must aim for the head, he empties the remainder of his ammunition into the body cavities of the zombies. I have to step in and state that this is a matter of Fulci’s steadfast direction in that, if you were attempting to flee from the grasp of the minions of Hell, you wouldn’t be thinking as clearing as you might otherwise.
However, I will acknowledge the faux pas of a sign beside the morgue in the hospital that reads “Do Not Entry.”
The Beyond was penned by Dardano Sacchetti, who has worked with the likes of Mario Bava, Umberto Lenzi, as well as created other Fulci works including City of the Living Dead and House by the Cemetery. Make-up artist Giannetto De Rossi, famous for Fulci’s trademark zombie in Zombi 2, was allowed to create his own vision of Hell in this picture.
And for those keeping track, The Beyond is the second installment in the never completed trilogy, which began with City of the Living Dead. (What puzzles me is that both films deal with “The Seven Doors of Death” yet, in the supposed “trilogy,” only one door is opened in each of the first two movies. Go figure.)
Fulci fans, Italian gore hounds, basically everyone alive, needs to thank, however reluctantly, Quentin Tarantino for bringing the uncut version, via his Rolling Thunder Pictures, to the United States in 1998 as well as Anchor Bay for giving us a DVD with interviews and production stills.
– Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
