A couple weeks back, i painted an illustration for Lucio Fulci's "Zombie", an incredibly violent horror film that was Italy's answer to "Dawn of the Dead". While i love that film, my favourite film by the director, Lucio Fulci, is "The Beyond".
Part of the three films that make up Lucio Fulci's "Gates to Hell" trilogy*, "The Beyond" focuses on a woman who inherits a hotel built on one of the seven cursed gateways to hell. Pandemonium ensues, in the form of ghostly blind girls, flesh-eating spiders, acid baths, crucified painters and more horrible things happening to eyeballs than should ever be contained in one film.
This one, like a lot of Italian cinema of the time, is not really about plot, or even characters. It works hard to put together a compelling and unsettling mood through the use of incredibly gruesome set-pieces, and iconic imagery. The vision of hell that is showcased towards the end of the film, and the character of Emily with her stark white eyes are most notable in this department. The score is one of my favourites, though the same composers' score for "City of the Living Dead" might barely beat it in my books.
If you haven't watched many Lucio Fulci films, this is a great place to start.
Check out the trailer here!
* The other two films in the "Gates to Hell" trilogy being "City of the Living Dead", and "House by the Cemetery", another couple favourites.
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