Beyond The Darkness

AKA Buio Omega

Director: Joe D’Amato

Director Joe D’Amato is mainly known for the handful of horror films he made in the 70s and 80s, as well as a whole host of “adult films”, such as a string of unofficial “Emmanuelle” sequels (the award for best title going to Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade). He also merged the horror and erotic genres in films such as “Porno Holocaust” and “Erotic Nights Of The Living Dead”. His filmography is very varied though, having also made fantasy films, westerns and war films (to name just a few genres) and produced many films including Claudio Fraggoso’s infamous “Troll 2″ and Michele Soavi’s directorial debut: “Stagefright”. D’Amato passed away in 1999 at the age of 62 but worked until the bitter end, mainly on porn films such as “Cop Sucker 2” and “House of Anal Perversions” (these films aren’t significant, they just have brilliant titles).

Whilst D’Amato called himself “a copier and a cheater” his small but perfectly formed contributions to the Italian horror genre should not be underestimated and I often feel his work is overlooked.

“Beyond The Darkness” (1979) is known by many different titles depending on where the film was released. In Italy it is known as “Buio Omega”, in France it was released as “Blue Holocaust” and in Mexico it was retroactively included in the Zombi film series as “Zombi 10”. This is despite being made the same year as Lucio Fulci’s original “Zombie Flesh Eaters”, which itself was released as “Zombi 2” in Italy as a sequel to George A. Romero’s “Dawn of The Dead”, which was released as “Zombi” in Italy. There was also a dubbed version of “Beyond The Darkness” released in the US that goes by the title “Buried Alive”.

To add to the confusion, according to Wikipedia, (so take with a pinch of salt), “Beyond The Darkness” is also part of the “La Casa” film series due to a re-release in 1987 when the film’s title was changed to “In quella casa Buio omega”. To give a bit of context, Sam Raimi’s “The Evil Dead” was released as “La Casa” in Italy (with a hilarious poster which has the Bates Motel in the background). “Evil Dead 2” was then released as “La Casa 2” and then the film series continued by rebranding other films with the “La Casa” name, such as Umberto Lenzi’s “Ghosthouse” and “House 2: The Second Story”. Have you understood all that? Yep? Good. 

“Beyond The Darkness” is seen as a highlight of Joe D’Amato’s filmography, along with “Anthropophagus” and “Absurd”, (both of which I will review in the future) and it’s easy to see why. In a sea of often forgettable movies, “Beyond The Darkness” sticks out like a sore thumb, so let’s get stuck in and see what all the fuss is about.

“Beyond The Darkness” starts off with some fantastic music, brought to us by Italian horror royalty: “Goblin” (or “The Goblins” in this case for some reason). The score is somewhere between disco, prog rock and the soundtrack to “Streets of Rage” on the Sega Mega Drive but for the most part, works a treat in this film. We see the star of the film, Francesco (played by Kieran Canter), driving through the countryside to pick up a dead baboon (as you do). It would seem he has a passion for taxidermy a la Norman Bates.

Francesco lives in a house (it’s probably a mansion really but I’ll call it a house) with a housekeeper called Iris who seems to have a hidden agenda. Early on in the film we see her gleefully watching a voodoo doll get stabbed while surrounded by photos of Francesco and his girlfriend (Anna, played by Cinzia Monreale who would appear in Lucio Fulci’s “The Beyond” a year later). Anna is in hospital you see, and the doll stabbing seems to be having detrimental effect on her condition. The real icing on the cake is that Iris doesn’t tell Francesco that the hospital had called about the change in Anna’s condition until hours later. I’m beginning to think she might be a little bit evil. Francesco rushes to the hospital where he spends a few short minutes with the love of his life, before she dies whilst he kisses her. I can’t help but feel that maybe some of the blame for her death should be on him, he was quite forceful with his kissing, especially in her fragile state.

Once back at the house, Francesco is reflecting in his dead mother’s bedroom. It’s been a very emotional day for poor old Francesco, I do hope nothing else weird happens to him. Whilst deep in thought, the housekeeper enters the room, gets her tit out and Francesco suckles on it like a hungry baby. That’s good, nothing else weird happened.

The next day (or week, it’s not clear, but it’s now the day of Anna’s funeral and I don’t know how quickly they can turn that stuff around in Italy) we see Francesco injecting his dead lover with a preservative. However, unbeknownst to Francesco, he is spotted by an employee of the funeral home (more of him later). She is then buried in what is quite a respectful and well shot funeral scene but I’m sure it won’t be long before this classiness is ruined. 

Later that night, Francesco goes back to the graveyard, digs up Anna’s corpse before popping her in the back of his trusty van. On the way home he gets a flat tyre – why does that always happen when you have a dead body in the boot? Before he can put a spare on, he is ambushed by a hitchhiker who wants a lift. On the journey she smokes a joint and falls asleep. Francesco manages to drive back to his house without waking up his unwanted passenger, so that must have been some strong shit.

Bizarrely, with the hitchhiker still asleep in the passenger seat, Francesco takes Anna out of the van and begins gutting her. The flesh cutting looks very realistic here, I’m not sure if even Norman would have the stomach for that. To no ones surprise, the hitchhiker wakes and is understandingly freaked out by what she sees. A struggle between the two ensues which ends with Francesco pulling out the hitchhikers fingernails with some pliers before strangling her. The fight is well shot and the violence and gore is suitably icky but if this scene is too much for you then probably best to bow out now as it’s only going to get worse. Told you it wouldn’t last.

It later becomes clear that Iris is in on this plot, as Iris and Francesco take the hitchhiker into the bathroom where they chop her up into pieces. It doesn’t end there though, as they then pour acid over her in the bath to dissolve the body. The ‘remnants’ are then poured into a hole in the ground in the nearby woods.

Iris seems to be reviling in this activity whilst Francesco seems to be finding it difficult coming to terms with how things have escalated. The gore on display here is really full on and stomach churning. Apparently during filming Joe D’Amato exclaimed “We’re making a movie to make people throw up, We must make ’em vomit”! Well done Joe, you succeeded. 

The grossness continues in the next scene as even Francesco himself throws up after watching Iris tucking into some sort of stew or porridge (it looks like sick) which reminds him of the hitchhiker soup in the bathtub.

At this point in the story you could be fooled into thinking that Francesco might be having a change of heart about this whole killing people, taxidermy, being molested by the housekeeper situation but, alas, it’s not meant to be. 

Clearly troubled by what has been happening, Iris comforts Francesco by wanking him off while he looks at Anna’s corpse. There’s nothing that gets Francesco going as much as the smell of acid, dead hitchhiker and vomit.

Shortly after, when out running, Francesco meets an attractive woman who has twisted her ankle, so Francesco takes her back to the house to dress the wound. One thing leads to another and they end up fucking. Midway through their coital session, Francesco pulls back a sheet on the other side of the bed revealing Anna in all her preserved glory. I’m not sure what made Francesco think she was going to be into a threesome with his dead girlfriend but predictably she is not too keen on the idea and another scuffle breaks out, she is badly wounded and Iris helps Francesco put her in the furnace where she is burnt alive.

As my friends will tell you, I’m not one for condoning necrophilia, but seeing as Francesco has his dead girlfriend in his bed, surely he could just slip her some extra stuffing every time he gets the urge rather than causing unnecessary blood shed. I seriously doubt he is above fucking a corpse.

Iris warns Francesco that it is too dangerous leaving Anna’s body lying around the house (you think?) but Francesco is adamant that she stays, even offering to marry Iris if he can keep his “doll”.

We then meet some of Iris’s relatives (including a woman with a moustache) at a dinner party she is hosting at Francesco’s house. Francesco enters the room, bewildered by the party going on in his own home and Iris announces to her family that she and Francesco are engaged. Clearly Francesco wasn’t quite ready to go public about their future marriage as he leaves the party in a hurry. He was probably waiting for after the next murder and comfort sex before making it official.  

The following day Francesco leaves the house and goes for a jog whilst Iris is drunk. During this time the funeral home worker from earlier (remember him?) enters the house and sees Anna’s body. He take some pictures of Anna’s body and then leaves. Of course, he doesn’t get the police involved. Why would you in this situation? That would be ludicrous. There is no way in the world that he would have got Francesco’s address in these GDPR driven days.

Despite all the efforts he went to get the corpse of Anna back, Francesco seems remarkably disinterested in her as the next night he takes a break from Iris and goes to a club to check out the local talent. Cue some awesome disco music and some awkward dancing, another mainstay of Italian films!

Francesco finds a suitable mate (who just so happens to be the worst dancer with the best facial expressions) and takes her back to the house and everything seems to be going well until Anna’s sister, Teodora (also played by Cinzia Monreale and who we saw briefly at the funeral) arrives at the house. Seeing someone who looks just like his dead lover puts Francesco into a panic and he forces the disco girl to leave so Teodora doesn’t see her. Lucky escape if you ask me. 

Upon seeing her sisters corpse, Teodora faints. Whilst incapacitated, Iris then appears with a knife to kill Teodora but Francesco stops her and a fight ensues. Francesco ultimately kills Iris but not before she stabs him in the dick and pulls out his left eye. Keen to make a fresh start with Teodora, he burns Anna’s body in the furnace, because obviously it was only that which would put Teodora off from getting with her dead sisters, one eyed, dick-less ex-boyfriend. 

Just when you thought the situation couldn’t get any worse, the funeral home employee arrives back at the house, finds Francesco in the basement and confronts him, but it’s all too late for that as Francesco dies from his wounds. Not wanting to have a wasted trip, the funeral home employee picks up Teodora and takes her back to his workplace thinking he is transporting Anna’s corpse back for re-burial. This does rather make one ask how does he not see that Teodora is not actually dead? She only fainted so would still be breathing… The guy works with dead bodies all the time, surely he should be able to tell the difference?! 

Predictably, whilst sealing the coffin with Teodora inside, she suddenly awakes and pushes the lid off, screaming, while the soundtrack blasts for one last time: The End.

It goes without saying that “Beyond The Darkness” is not going to be everyones cup of tea. Personally, I think it is a lot of fun and unlike some films of this ilk, it doesn’t become tiresome, as there is always another scene of murder or Francesco being preyed upon by Iris round the corner. The gore effects are vomit inducing (in a good way) and the bathtub scene will certainly stick in the mind for a while. Kieran Canter does a good job playing Francesco, although doesn’t show a massive range of emotions, but I put that down to the fact that his character is already morally bankrupt from the beginning (although clearly not as much as Iris). The house setting is also used to great effect.

The score by Goblin is wonderful and fits nicely for most of the film. The piano “love theme” is particularly good, although I do feel the choice of track used for the ending of the film is a bit too jolly considering what had happened.

“Beyond The Darkness” is a film which pushes the boundaries of decency but if you go into it with an open mind and a closed gullet you’ll have a great time. I would recommend it being worth a watch for those who enjoy gore and ‘out there’ stories which go hand in hand with Italian exploitation horror as a genre. If you do not have a strong stomach for gore effects, however, then perhaps this one isn’t for you.