Seven Doors Of Death - A.K.A. The Beyond (Widescreen Edition)

Starring:Al Cliver, Laura De Marchi, Giovanni De Nava, Roberto Dell'Acqua, Anthony Flees, Gilberto Galimberti, Veronica Lazar, Catriona MacColl, Maria Pia Marsala, Michele Mirabella, Cinzia Monreale, Gianpaolo Saccarola, Dardano Sacchetti, Antoine Saint-John, Sergio Salvati, Giorgio Trestini, David Warbeck
Studio: Diamond Ent. Corp.
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
Lucio "King of the Eyeball Gag" Fulci made his name with a series of gory, gooey horror epics, and The Beyond stands above all as his outré masterpiece. The largely incoherent plot has something to do with a turn-of-the-century curse and a doorway to hell in the cellar of an old New Orleans hotel. Fulci shows his usual sensitivity with wooden acting, clumsy dialogue, and buckets of oozing blood and pus, but don't let that get in the way of enjoying this mad tale of zombies from hell invading Earth and eating their way through a cast of humans: crucified martyrs, blind visionaries, creepy hotel handymen, befuddled cops, and a plucky pair of heroes desperately fleeing a horde of hungry undead. The blood-red art direction is eerily beautiful, and Fulci's relentless long takes, punctuated by jolting shock cuts and eruptions of grotesque violence, create a mood of sheer paranoid horror right down to the final, mind-bending image. And don't forget the Fulci claim to fame: eyes are gouged out, eaten away, melted with acid, and (shudder) popped out by a spike through the back of the skull. Yech! If you dare ignore such piddling details as narrative logic and let yourself get carried away on the creepy visuals, it's a deliciously stylish treat, an edgy bit of gothic gore pitched in all its bone-crunching, flesh-ripping, organ-splatting glory. This sadistic, sanguinary hell-spawn tale is for gore-hounds only.

Amazon.com

Lucio "King of the Eyeball Gag" Fulci made his name with a series of gory, gooey horror epics, and The Beyond stands above all as his outré masterpiece. The largely incoherent plot has something to do with a turn-of-the-century curse and a doorway to hell in the cellar of an old New Orleans hotel. Fulci shows his usual sensitivity with wooden acting, clumsy dialogue, and buckets of oozing blood and pus, but don't let that get in the way of enjoying this mad tale of zombies from hell invading Earth and eating their way through a cast of humans: crucified martyrs, blind visionaries, creepy hotel handymen, befuddled cops, and a plucky pair of heroes desperately fleeing a horde of hungry undead. The blood-red art direction is eerily beautiful, and Fulci's relentless long takes, punctuated by jolting shock cuts and eruptions of grotesque violence, create a mood of sheer paranoid horror right down to the final, mind-bending image. And don't forget the Fulci claim to fame: eyes are gouged out, eaten away, melted with acid, and (shudder) popped out by a spike through the back of the skull. Yech! If you dare ignore such piddling details as narrative logic and let yourself get carried away on the creepy visuals, it's a deliciously stylish treat, an edgy bit of gothic gore pitched in all its bone-crunching, flesh-ripping, organ-splatting glory. This sadistic, sanguinary hell-spawn tale is for gore-hounds only.

Customer Reviews:

Cult indeed.......2007-05-13

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.

Worthwhile Italian Classic.......2007-04-11

The Beyond opens with what has become one of my favorite scenes. A strange man is painting pictures of Hell on a canvas in room 36 of an old Louisana hotel. The year is 1927 and the mans name is Sweik. The natives of the town believe that Sweik is placing a curse on thier village through his drawings and what follows is a typical southern stereotype. A lynch mob storms the hotel and constrains Sweik as he is finishing one of his paintings.

The mob then drags him down a spiral staircase into the basement where he meets his fate in the form of being crucified against a wall and then drenched in flesh eating acid. All while that typical annoying as hell gaillo music is playing in the backgound. Kathrine MacColl inherits the hotel where Shiek meet his unfortunate and horrible demise some six odd years later.

The hotel has all sorts of strange occurances, not the least of which is the consistant flooding in the basement. As she is preparing to open the hotel the flooding in the basement starts to present a real problem, thus she calls in a plumber. Joe the Plumber (yes that is the characters actual name) is called in to fix the issue. What he finds is far more serious than leaky pipe...

The reason that this film works is because of it's take no prisoners presentation. Fulci knows what we want to see, and he more than delivers. It works on the same principle that John Carpenter's 'The Fog' works, the events are presented with no context. You never really know why this guy has no head, or why that lady just got an acid bath. Nor do you care. Fulci doesn't raise any questions and he certainly doesn't answer any, but hey, thats ok with me.

Pathetically funny.......2007-03-19

This movie must be praised, but not for the "gory scenes" or "horrifying horror", but simply because IT IS DAMN FUNNY!

It has so many flaws, holes in the script and bad acting that I just couldn't stop laughing.

If you like big, big comedies, you MUST watch Lucio Fulci's movies... Trust me: it is DAMN FUN mock all his Z-quality movies

Fulci lives!.......2007-03-02

I watched this last night for first time after I've been trying to find it for months and absolutely loved it.I will probably watch it again today.This movie is dark,atmospheric and the N.O.L.A setting is great.I can understand why some "pop-horror" fans might not like it,a lot of the story is not explained and stuff just seems to happen out of nowhere but thats the feel Fulci was going for and why I love it.This movie is brutal ,unrelenting and Fulci's goriest.FULCI LIVES!

This movie is awesome.......2007-02-27

If you like flicks like Blood Sucking Freaks, Necromatik, Sinful Dwarf, May, Devil's Rejects, zombie movies, or other goodies of this nature then you'll love this film. This movie shows everything, every bit of gore, with tons of attention paid to detail of the violence. Most of the really intense scenes (there are lots of them) come out of nowhere, and are well worth it when they do. Made by the same guy who made the Italian movie Zombie, but this film blows that one away. Not for the mild horror fan, this one's for us serious disturbing-movie-loving freaks only. If you're a sick and twisted horror fan, don't pass this one up, it will not disappoint. This movie is awesome.

DVD:

DVD

DVD

DVD

Surf Ninjas

Jethro Says Bull'cks To Europe : Video

Explorers (REGION 1) (NTSC)

DVD: You Are Here

Gay Bar