The Beyond

AKA L’aldilà / 7 Doors Of Death

Director: Lucio Fulci

This week we will be looking at a very highly regarded entry in Lucio Fulci’s filmography, and the second film in his “Gates Of Hell” trilogy, “The Beyond”.

Released in 1981, just a year after “City Of The Living Dead”, “The Beyond” is often considered one of the high points in Fulci’s career and it’s easy to see why. The film has all the classic Fulci tropes; excessive amounts of gore, a surrealist plot, eye gouging and an unrelentingly dark atmosphere. Plus “The Beyond” feels larger in scale than some of his previous work.

Catriona McColl is back after her turn as Mary in “City Of The Living Dead” and this time she is joined by legendary actor and James Bond reserve, David Warbeck, who also starred in Fulci’s “The Black Cat” the very same year.

Much of the off screen talent from “City Of The Living Dead” returns in this film; Dardano Sacchetti pens the story, Fabio Frizzi provides the score and Sergio Salvati is back providing some gorgeous cinematography.

A re-edited version of the film was released in the states in 1983 under the title “7 Doors Of Death”. This featured a different musical score and was shorter than the original cut, removing a lot of the gore. Interestingly, the video release of “7 Doors Of Death” featured quotes from “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” director Tobe Hooper and writer Kim Henkel on the cover praising the film. Fulci’s original version wasn’t released properly until 1998 when Sage Stallone’s “Grindhouse Releasing” label obtained the distribution rights. It was also around this time that Quentin Tarantino gave the film a limited US theatrical run under his “Rolling Thunder” label.

In the UK, “The Beyond” was included on the infamous video nasty list and would not be released uncut until 2001 by Vipco before being picked up by the almighty Arrow Video.

“The Beyond” opens in Louisiana, 1927, where a lynch mob are making their way by boat to the Seven Doors Hotel. At the hotel we see an artist called Schweick (played by Antoine Saint-John) putting the finishing touches to his most recent painting, which depicts a baron wasteland with dead bodies scattered throughout. Whilst not being the most cheery of images, there is no denying the artistry.

Meanwhile, at a nearby house we see a young woman, Emily (played by “Beyond The Darkness” star Cinzia Monreale), reading a mysterious book, entitled “Eibon”. The book of Eibon details that the Seven Doors Hotel is in fact one of the seven gateways to hell. Calling it the Seven Doors Hotel seems a little bit on the nose then doesn’t it? That’s like the Overlook Hotel from “The Shining” being called the Indian Burial Ground Hotel.

Once the lynch mob finally arrive, they storm their way through the hotel to room 36 where Schweick is residing. After accusing him of being a warlock (although based on what evidence I’m not entirely sure) and for putting a curse on the town and the hotel, Schweick is whipped across the face with a heavy chain, leaving a rather nasty gash.

The mob then take the artist to the basement of the hotel, whip him some more and then nail him to the wall by his wrists using some rusty nails. Once fixed in place, the mob repeatedly throw acid onto Schweick’s face and we are then treated to an extended scene of his face slowly melting away. I often think that in “City Of The Living Dead” Fulci and his team had mastered the head grabby brain effect so they made sure they used it wherever they could in the plot, whereas in this film, they do a similar thing with the face melting. The effect is brilliantly done: icky, painful looking, horrific but fun, like watching a bath bomb slowly fizz away to nothing, albeit a rather bloody bath bomb. That’s a product for halloween that Lush need to make – The Beyond Bomb! Or the Fulci Fizzer! I’d be first in line!

As Schweick’s face dissolves away we then cut back to Emily reading a passage from the book of Eibon, something to do with opening one of the gates of hell. After Emily has finished reading the passage, the book bursts into flames. Roll credits!

So, just to recap, at this point we are led to believe that by killing the painter, the angry mob have opened one of the seven gates to hell, as mentioned in the book of Eibon, which was being read by someone at the same time the painter was murdered, even though he was being murdered for being a warlock… What?! It doesn’t matter, just go with it. There’s an evil book and a gateway to hell has been opened in the basement of the hotel, that’s all you really need to know at this point.

After the credits, we skip forward in time to 1981 where we are introduced to Liza (played by Catriona MacColl) who has inherited the Seven Doors Hotel and is in the process of renovating it, along with a crew of workmen including painters and builders, but most notably, an architect called Martin (played by Michele Mirabella), Martha the housekeeper (played by Veronica Lazarand, who had previously appeared in Dario Argento’s “Inferno” one year prior) and Arthur (played by Giampaolo Saccarola) who I guess is some sort of butler although it’s never really explained.

One of the painters is up on a platform doing up the outside of the hotel when he suddenly catches sight of a woman standing inside the hotel through a window, her eyes cold and misty (although quite clearly contact lenses). The shock of seeing the woman causes the builder to fall off the platform to the ground. Considering the distance of the fall, on to grass I might add, he seems to be bleeding an awful lot from his mouth. I’m not saying that a fall like that wouldn’t smart a bit, but I think there would be more broken bones than anything else. Maybe he bit his tongue when he landed… I dunno.

Shortly after, Dr. John McCabe arrives at the hotel (played by David Warbeck) and takes the injured painter to the hospital for treatment. After the Dr. has left, Martin the architect spots Schweick’s macabre painting, now covered in cobwebs on the floor in the corner of the room. Just as Liza walks over to look at it, the room service bell for room 36 rings.

A few moments later, Joe the Plumber (played by Tonino Pulci) arrives to look at a flood in the basement which is causing a few issues. “I hope it’s not too serious” Liza says to Joe as she takes him through the hotel. Your whole basement has flooded and there is no water coming out of the taps, Liza, even if you aren’t a plumber, I think it’s pretty obvious it’s serious! Like any good, professional plumber, Joe finds where the water is coming from, and then proceeds to smash the wall down using a hammer and a chisel. After a while, Joe manages to make a sufficient hole in the wall to climb through, where we see he has entered the part of the basement where Schweick was murdered at the beginning of the film.

Meanwhile, upstairs Liza finds Arthur lurking in her bedroom. Arthur is always sweaty, and on the verge of crying it seems. Liza questions why he is in her room and Arthur makes some excuse about trying to find some keys, but really we know he was just having a cheeky one off the wrist.

Back in the basement, Joe the plumber is continuing to ensure he doesn’t do any plumbing of any kind and instead is pushing his way through another wall. This time the wall is so wet and crumbly he doesn’t even need to use any tools. Joe takes a second to inspect the hole he has just made in the wall when, suddenly, an arm appears grabbing Joe’s face and slowly pushes one of his eyes out of its socket. Ew.

We then cut to Liza driving across a vast bridge when she spots a figure in the middle of the road. It’s Emily – remember her from the beginning of the film? Emily is now blind (I’m not surprised after having a book burst into flames in her face) but apart from this, looks exactly as she did back in 1927. Liza stops the car in the road and Emily explains that she has been trying to find Liza. I know Emily is blind, but is the middle of a road the best place to be looking for someone? She did find Liza I guess so maybe I shouldn’t mock. Now, Liza didn’t seem at all concerned that this person she hadn’t met before was looking for her and knew her name. Liza then lets Emily in to her car. Also, Guide Dogs do an amazing job but does a dead person really need a Guide Dog? Is that not taking equal rights a bit too far? Plus who gave her the dog… Satan?

Back at the hotel, Martha is down in the basement checking up on Joe, only to find him in a very sorry state with both of his eyes missing now and vomiting blood and guts. As if that weren’t enough, she then sees the badly mutilated corpse of Schweick rising from the water. Martha reacts to seeing these two horrific things as if they are something she encounters everyday, strange woman.

Over at Emily’s house, things seem to be just as bizarre, as Emily has taken it upon herself to sit Liza down and play the piano to her. Emily begins to play a rather nice track written by Fabio Frizzi for Lucio Fulci’s 1981 movie “The Beyond”… oh wait… As Emily continues to play the beautiful but ominous music, she warns Liza to leave the hotel at once and never come back.

We then cut to the hospital where Dr. McCabe and his assistant, Dr. Harris (played by frequent Fulci collaborator, Al Cliver) are looking over the bodies of Joe the plumber and Schweick. How they managed to transport Schweick’s corpse to the hospital without his body just crumbling away I’m not sure. Dr. Harris is keen to hook the body up to his brainwave machine to see if there is any signal. I could make a cheap joke about the NHS spending their time tending to the dead like these folk are but I won’t… Although maybe Dr. Harris should be spending his time on helping the patients that are actually still alive in the hospital?

Dr. McCabe leaves the room and Dr. Harris is also called away shortly after, much to his disappointment. How dare I be called away from buggering about with a dead body to actually do my job! As the doctor shuts the door behind him, the brain wave machine starts to bleep.

Moments later, a woman and a young girl are walking down the corridor of the hospital to the room where the two bodies are being housed. This is Joe’s wife (Mary-Ann, played by Laura De Marci) and daughter (Jill, played by Maria Pia Marsala). Mary-Ann enters the room to dress the body of her dead husband whilst Jill waits outside. It seems a bit odd that they just let themselves into the room without anyone else from the hospital escorting them. Firstly, I don’t think it’s normally the job of the family to dress the body of their dead loved ones. That seems kind of insensitive, especially seeing as it hasn’t even been 24 hours and the body has been so violently attacked. I would have thought the police would want to make inquiries about how that actually happened. Secondly, how did Mary-Ann know which room the body was in? She seems very confident letting herself into the room, despite the fact it says “Do Not Entry” on the door. Thirdly, not only is Joe’s body in there, but there is also the badly mutilated body of Schweick in plain sight, plus a handful of other corpses in body bags. This is the sort of shit that would scar someone for life!

What happens next is a little bit confusing; after Mary-Ann has finished dressing Joe, she turns around and looks at Schweick (who has been there the whole time), screams, and we then get a shot of a glass bottle falling over on a shelf. After hearing her mother’s screams, Jill enters the room to see Mary-Ann, now passed out on the floor, directly under where the jar is, with it’s contents spilling all over her face.

The liquid housed in the open bottle is actually acid and Jill looks on in horror as her mother’s face begins to melt away, just like Schweick from earlier in the film. As Mary-Ann’s face slowly dissolves, it creates a rather delicious looking strawberry and cream-esque substance that slowly creeps it’s way towards Jill. In a panic, Jill tries to escape from the room but opens a door to a walk in freezer where she is confronted by a corpse with an eye missing. Jill screams as the corpse either begins to walk toward her or fall on top of her, not sure which, as we then fade to the next scene. It feels like this series of events could have been easily avoided if the hospital was managed a bit better.

We then cut to a bar where Liza and Dr. McCabe are enjoying some live jazz music and a drink. Liza explains to the Dr. that she is determined to get the hotel up and running again but that Martha and Arthur are more of a hinderance than a help. “Well, if you hired them, you can fire them”, Dr. McCabe replies only for Liza to explain that they “came” with the hotel. Whilst this is a very minor detail, it did give me a little shiver. Before the conversation can carry on, Dr. McCabe is called away to the telephone.

Now at the funeral of her parents, we see Jill being comforted by her family. Once the ceremony is over, Jill’s only remaining family leave her on her own. Surely she’s not old enough to look after herself?! I mean, in a way I am glad because I didn’t want this to go down “The Sweet House Of Horrors” route… but still. As Jill walks away from the cemetery we find out that she has also gone blind, just like Emily. Not sure how none of her family noticed that but then again, they are quite happy to leave her to fend for herself now that her parents have been brutally killed so maybe they actually just don’t give a shit about her.

Back in the hotel, where there actually seems to be a river flowing beneath it now, we find Liza taking a look around before finding Emily, sat in the corner of the room, calling her name. “Why didn’t you listen to me Liza, I wanted to spare you, but I’ll have to tell you everything” Emily warns, and with that we see the POV of a ghostly presence wandering around the hotel before stopping outside room 36.

Emily tells Liza about what happened to Schweick and that the hotel was built on one of the seven doors to hell. Emily reaches out to touch the old painting that Schweick made when suddenly the bell for room 36 rings. “That’s where he was killed” Emily informs Liza. Erm… no it wasn’t, he was killed in the basement! Emily warns Liza to never go into room 36 and as she pulls back her hands from the painting, we see they are now covered with blood. Emily screams and runs out of the hotel with Dickie, her Guide Dog, in tow.

The next morning, despite Emily’s warnings, Liza forces the door of room 36 open and goes in to investigate. There doesn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary at first, apart from the book of Eibon sat on the side of a desk. Liza then hears the wardrobe door slowly open and she puts out her hand to find there is a gentle wind coming from inside… it’s Narnia!

Liza then enters the bathroom where she finds the rotten corpse of Schweick nailed to the wall above the bath. Liza screams as blood begins pouring from the body and runs out of room 36 as a storm begins to rage outside. Liza runs downstairs and screams again as she spots the shadow of a figure outside the door. Fear not, it’s only Dr. McCabe. Clearly relived by the Doctor’s timely appearance, she seeks comfort in his arms.

Skip forward in time, and we see Dr. McCabe up in room 36 with Liza, but now there is no corpse in the bathroom, only two nails in the wall from where it was hanging earlier. Confused by what has happened, Liza explains that her imagination must have got the better of her, especially after hearing all these stories from Emily. Dr. McCabe questions Liza about Emily as he had never heard of her before and he knows everyone who lives in the area. At that moment, Liza notices the book of Eibon is no longer on the desk.

We then cut to Liza and Martin walking through the town as Martin explains his plans for the basement. Martin wants to pump out the water and then convert it into several rooms. I would probably sort the leak out first Martin, you can pump the water out as much as you want but it’s still going to be leaking from somewhere. The last plumber that went down there didn’t finish the job remember? As the pair carry on walking, Liza notices the book of Eibon in a second hand book shop. Like a woman possessed, Liza storms into the shop and picks up the book, only to find it has now changed into a different book altogether. Liza queries this with the slightly odd shop owner, who explains that book has been there for two years with no-one wanting to buy it, then he starts chuckling to himself sinisterly. I don’t think it’s the book that’s the problem, I suspect it’s the shop keeper’s manner that’s probably putting people off.

Shortly after, Martin makes his way over to the public library to look up some information about the hotel to aid with his plans. Here we get a cameo from Fulci himself as the librarian, who shows Martin where to find the book he needs before buggering off. Martin climbs up the ladder to the relevant shelf, finds the book, and opens it, when he looks upon a floor plan for the hotel which gives him quite a shock. There is a sudden flash of lightening and Martin falls off the ladder and lands on the hard tiled floor.

Now paralysed on the floor, Martin is approached by a hoard of tarantulas that slowly begin eating his face. This scene is pretty gory and much like the gut spewing scene from “City Of The Living Dead”; this is likely to be too much for most viewers. If you have made it this far into the film, then this is a make or break moment. The difference with this scene though, is it lasts a good few minutes, whereas the gut spewing was over with pretty quickly. For me, the scene isn’t completely successful. For starters, the arrival of the tarantulas is so unexpected it’s hard not to giggle at the insanity occurring on screen. The obvious mix of real spiders and fake ones doesn’t quite work either. While this is an odd criticism to lay at a film like this, I do find this scene a tad gratuitous, something which I don’t normally find with death scenes in these types of films. I think the key reason is due to that, for the most part, extremely gory scenes don’t tend to last that long, whereas here it goes on and on. Don’t get me wrong, if Fulci wanted to shock and disgust with this scene then he has certainly succeeded, but sometimes less is more, especially when it involves fake spiders bobbing up and down on strings.

Meanwhile, Dr. McCabe goes to Emily’s house to investigate, only to find it abandoned and boarded shut. After forcing his way in, the Dr. finds the inside of the house in ruin. There certainly hasn’t been anyone living there for sometime. Whilst having a snoop, however, he comes across the book of Eibon, covered in cobwebs on a table.

Back at the hotel, Martha goes into room 36 to start cleaning it up. Upon entering the bathroom, she finds the bath tub full of dirty water. Without hesitation, Martha rolls up her sleeve and reaches down to remove the offensively large ball of human hair causing the blockage. As the water drains away, the corpse of Joe is revealed and begins to come to life. This time, Martha shows a bit more emotion as she is stalked by the eyeless zombie who eventually grabs hold of her face and forces it against one of the nails sticking out from the wall, pushing one of her eyeballs out of its socket.

Emily, now back at her house, all furnished and clean like it was before, sits down, but Dickie is feeling spooked by something and starts to whine. Also sensing something strange in the room, Emily begins to panic, calling out to Schweick and pleading with him not to take her back. We then see that Emily is surrounded by zombies, including Joe and Martin. Emily orders Dickie to attack the zombies to protect her, which he does, beginning with Schweick. Suddenly there is an eerie silence in the room and Dickie makes his way back over to Emily. “Good boy Dickie” Emily says, just before Dickie, now possessed, attacks Emily and rips out her throat and bites off her ear. I think Dickie might need a bit more training.

Back at the hotel, Liza is down in the basement when, suddenly, Arthur lunges out of the water and tries to attack her. The last time we saw Arthur he was going down to the basement to try and patch up the hole in the wall made by Joe the plumber, but we didn’t actually see him get attacked, and when he appears from the water it doesn’t look like he has any zombie make up on of any kind. Maybe he was just down there trying to have another wank in peace before Liza disturbed him yet again.

Liza manages to get away and bumps into Dr. McCabe upstairs. The Dr. tries to calm down a now hysterical Liza. Once Liza has control of her senses, Dr. McCabe informs her that he went to Emily’s house, and found the book of Eibon which he believes Liza had planted there for him. Clearly finding all of the recent events difficult to swallow and beginning to suspect Liza is lying, Dr. McCabe asks Liza to take him down to the basement to show him where Arthur tried to attack her.

As predicted, once down in the basement, Arthur is nowhere to be seen. Just as the Dr. begins to question Liza about her mental state, a strong gust of wind begins blowing violently in their direction followed by lightening and drops of blood begin showering from the ceiling. The pair manage to escape the basement and quickly make their way out of the hotel. As they drive away from the hotel, we see the lights come on in every room and dark figures appearing at the windows of the hotel which is a nice creepy image.

As the doctor and Liza drive through the town they notice that there doesn’t appear to be anyone else around. The same can be said when they arrive at the hospital, with the whole building being devoid of any staff or patients. The pair go to Dr. McCabe’s office where he picks up the phone to find the line is dead. Liza looks at her hands and discovers they are now covered with blood, and in her terror she backs up against a frosted window which is suddenly smashed through by the writhing arms of the undead, which grab the back of her head. For my money, this has got to be one of the best jump scares of any horror film. It’s brilliantly executed and very effective, so much so it doesn’t need a loud musical sting (apart from the smashing of the glass) to make you jump like most modern horror films rely on so heavily.

Dr. McCabe reaches for a gun and begins trying to fend off the group of zombies but the first two body shots don’t seem to do anything. The Dr. then tries shooting the zombies head which works immediately, as Liza is released from it’s grip and the zombie falls to the floor.

The pair flee the room, only to find more zombies now walking around the corridors of the hospital. Dr. McCabe tells Liza to get to the elevator as he tries to keep the hoards of the undead at bay. Sadly, the Dr. seems to have forgotten what he just learnt about how to incapacitate zombies and begins shooting at their bodies again. Now out of bullets, Dr. McCabe hides in a room as the groans of the zombies outside the door are heard. In the room, Dr. McCabe finds Dr. Harris brandishing a knife for self defence, clearly shaken up by what is happening in the hospital. Suddenly the door bursts open and the undead begin moving in. As if by magic, Dr. McCabe’s gun has bullets in it again and he is able to knock off a few zombies before shooting a window so the pair can escape. Sadly, just at the point of the glass shattering, there is a strong gust of wind and the glass is blown back towards Dr. Harris’s face. With a head full of shards of glass, Dr, Harris drops to the floor dead. Oops.

Dr. McCabe manages to escape and opens the elevator to find Liza, now accompanied by Jill, who she found hiding in the autopsy theatre. The trio go to another level in the hospital and then get out of the lift, only to be trapped by groups of zombies at either end of the corridor. With nowhere else to go, they make their way into the autopsy room… you know, the room where there is guaranteed to be more dead bodies.

Sure enough, some of the dead bodies are now back to life, slowly scratching away from within their body bags, trying to get out. Dr. McCabe is confronted by the corpse of Schweick and the Dr. begins filling the zombie with lead, whilst Fabio Frizzi calls back a theme from his score for “City Of The Living Dead” which works beautifully here. With the Dr. distracted, a possessed Jill attacks Liza, but quick as a flash and with no hesitation, Dr. McCabe shoots Jill straight in the head, causing the top half of her head to explode. Clearly he hated Jill just as much as her own family.

Now out of bullets again, Liza and the Dr. exit the autopsy room via a door and find themselves walking down the stairs into the basement at the hotel. Stunned and confused by what is happening, Dr. McCabe and Liza make their way through a brightly lit gap in the wall. With the sounds of undead souls ringing around them, the pair walk out onto a baron wasteland, littered with dead bodies, just like Schweick’s painting.

Upon realising they have journeyed through one of the gates of hell, into the beyond if you like, the pair try to escape, but each way they turn they are confronted with the same desolate and hopeless landscape. Before long, we see that they are now both blind too, destined to spend eternity trapped in a sea of darkness. Not exactly a happy ending but a very memorable one and it looks great.

Let’s not try and piece together everything that happened in the film, as this is not really the point of it. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of questions that remain unanswered, such as: 1. why did Emily keep referring to Schwaick being murdered in room 36 when he was actually killed in the basement? 2. If Arthur and Martha “came” with the hotel then were they already aware of what was going to happen? 3. And if not, where did they come from then? 4. Why was Emily released from the beyond to try and warn Liza and where did she get Dickie from? 5. Surely evil forces would want the gates of hell to be opened? 6. Why did everyone hate Jill so much? The list goes on and on but not having the answers to these questions makes no difference to my enjoyment of the film.

“The Beyond” is another great example of Lucio Fulci as a visualist. There are some really striking images in the film, with the depiction of hell at the end being a truly haunting but beautiful way to end the film. The gore effects are expertly handled with (in my opinion) only the spider scene lingering too long and losing impact, although the fake spiders are kind of cute as they bounce up and down, which I am sure was not meant to be the case!

There is a great sense of scale in “The Beyond”, no doubt helped by Fabio Frizzi’s excellent score, which feels so much grander than his previous scores for “Zombi” and “City Of The Living Dead”. Part of this is likely to be the inclusion of a choir which helps make the score sound more epic (in the traditional sense of the word) with an almost operatic feel. Having said that, there are plenty of more mellow moments in the score too and these pieces of music are nothing short of beautiful.

Catriona MacColl and David Warbeck are great as Liza and Dr. McCabe and they have good chemistry. It is a shame they didn’t work on another film together. Despite never quite understanding that he needs to shoot the zombies in the head, the image of David Warbeck holding the gun in his hand as he tries to ward off the sea of the undead is iconic.

On a side note, the DVD of “The Beyond” I have comes with a commentary track by Catriona MacColl and David Warbeck, recorded for a laserdisc release back in 1997, just three weeks before David Warbeck would pass away from cancer at the age of 55. In the commentary David talks quite openly about being on lots of drugs and spending lots of time at the hospital but declares “I’m fine, I’m curing myself”. David Warbeck sounded like a lovely man and his and Catriona’s experiences of working with Fulci are a joy to listen to. It’s such a shame he died at such a young age.

The supporting cast in the film are good too, although none of them are particularly developed, but, then again, they don’t really need to be apart from Cinzia Monreale as Emily, who gives a great performance under what must have been some quite painful contact lenses.

I don’t really know what else to say about “The Beyond”. If you are into Italian horror cinema then you have likely seen it already and if you haven’t then I would strongly recommend you do. If you haven’t seen a Lucio Fulci film before, then I would still probably recommend “City Of The Living Dead” as the best place to start. Not because it is better than “The Beyond” because I think they are pretty even really, just because the plot is more straightforward, even with its cobbled together ending.

What “The Beyond” lacks in a straight forward narrative, it more than makes up for in visuals, and I am by no means criticising the film for the way the plot plays out because it does work, in its own dream like way. Having said that, the few tiny inconsistencies I have highlighted could have been easily fixed, which makes me believe that they were intentionally part of the design of the film. If you enjoyed “City Of The Living Dead” then I’m sure you will enjoy “The Beyond” too. A film which is strongly recommended for the strong of stomach and open of mind.