Purely Joyful Movie!

good back-story, and good acting

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

How can a film be scary and funny at the same time? I don't know, but that's what Beyond the Door manages to be. It's an Exorcist rip-off with a bit of Rosemary's baby thrown in for good measure, filtered through some Italian film companies' shattered brain pan. Best example of this is the very beginning of the film, which Satan narrates himself while we watch a writhing naked woman on a plinth, whose face then turns into Jesus. A Jesus with boobs.Jessica lives in San Francisco with her husband Robert and their two kids, Gail (who talks like a hippy and sounds ten years older than she looks) and Ken (who is about five and swears like a trooper!). Jessica is once again pregnant, and therefore exhibits the usual symptoms of what we used to called Irish Toothache: nausea, eating weird things, in this case a rotten banana off the street, extreme mood swings, murdering a bunch of gold fish, blaming her husband for every single wrong in the world, slapping her kids about.Vomiting blood isn't the best indication that the pregnancy is going well, and even stranger is that the pregnancy is progressing at an alarming rate. Jessica is concerned and wants to have an abortion as the pregnancy is now causing her to float about the room and leave mud everywhere (don't think about it). When the doctor agrees to the abortion, she goes mental and insists that the baby be born! Women, eh?I burst out laughing when the kids started begging with their father not to leave them alone with their mother, but then the film did a strange thing by becoming effective and creepy. When the kid brother is alone he starts talking to an invisible thing sitting in a rocking chair, his sister arrives, going on about something or other and totally oblivious to the fact that every doll in the room has turned to stare at her. What's harder to ignore is the room going completely mental, the dolls walking about, and a cake floating up to the ceiling and getting squashed.The kids are shipped off somewhere and the strange fellow turns out to be Jessica's ex-boyfriend Richard Johnson, who didn't fare to well with the occult way back in The Witch In Love either. He wants the baby to be born and insists he help, whereas the doctor thinks it's probably for the best if the demon spawn of hell be removed. It's like the worst abortion debate in the world, all set to the soundtrack of a woman vomiting, cussing and flying about the room. I've been looking forward to this film for some time and wasn't disappointed. I thought the really daft period of Italian horror started later in the decade, but here it is, a fully fledged trash classic that ticks all the boxes you need. Or I need, anyway.

There are rip-offs of The Exorcist. And then there are rip-offs where copyright infringement lawsuits lead to Warner Brothers getting a cash settlement and a portion of the film's future revenue. Beyond the Door would be the latter. It's $40 million worldwide gross meant that this film would a film draw the ire and call of that most Satanic of all monsters, the suits and the lawyers.Directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis, who wrote 1979's most insane film The Visitor and directed Tentacles and Madhouse (and he was also CEO of Cannon, producing films like Lambada and American Ninja 5), the film opens with Satan literally speaking, promising to give a man ten more years of life if he knocks up a woman. Oh yeah — there's also a naked female on a light up crucifix.Jessica Barrett (Juliet Mills, TV's Nanny and the Professor) is pregnant with her third child, which leads to the typical symptoms — strange voices, throwing up blood, screaming all night long. You know — the normal stuff.Her other kids are also impacted by all this Satanic panic going on in the Barrett house, as her husband Robert (Gabriele Lavia, Deep Red) tries to help. Turns out an old lover, Dmitri (Richard Johnson, Dr. Menard from Zombi!) has something to do with all of this, as he's the man Satan was speaking to in the opening of the film. He offers to help Jessica, but he's really trying to ensure that her baby is born because it's gonna be the Antichrist (Dumb Dumb Dumb)!The possessor ends up killing Dmitri after asking him to reach into Jessica and pull out her baby. She vomits blackness all over his face, so he starts banging on her stomach while yelling, "LIES! LIES LIES!" So the devil sends him back over that cliff in his car, killing him.A dove flies by as we find Jessica on a boat, covered with a robe and wearing sunglasses. She has lost the baby but regained her life. Children run and play everywhere. Meanwhile, we cut to a young child unwrapping a gift, which contains a red car. He tosses it overboard, revealing that he's the Antichrist. Or maybe he's Jessica's kid? Who knows. Who can say? He does have glowing eyes, so there's that.Beyond the Door zigs where The Exorcist zags. Instead of "Tubular Bells," we get 70's funk. Instead of priests, we get weird ex-lovers. Instead of kids being possessed, here they are just foul- mouthed little bastards.But hey — the ad campaign for this film is memorable, even if the film isn't!

Finally, after years of searching, I found a copy of the long lost gem, Beyond the Door. Even better, I found the longer, director's cut released under the title The Devil Within Her, which has everything from the original chopped up version that I first saw when I was eight years old, but it made a bit more sense with all the additional footage--I'm pretty sure the version I saw forty years ago as a kid didn't have a woman floating in mid-air begging someone to rip the fetus out of her vagina! Wow. No, this is NOT an Exorcist ripoff any more than Friday the 13th is a Halloween ripoff. It's just a movie about satanic possession. What do you want a movie about satanic possession to look like, Lassie? Of course it's going to look like The Exorcist. And with all the lame Exorcist ripoffs being produced today, you should be glad to see something original from the day and something NOT politically correct. Beyond the Door was one of my absolute favorite movies growing up. It scared that bejesus out me and today, when I finally got a chance to watch it again, of course it didn't scare me as much as it did when I was a child, but I still found it scary as all hell and an absolute blast to watch. And it's funny. It's camp. Unintentionally camp, which is important. If you are a movie buff do yourself a favor and give this one a screening before Quentin Tarantino makes an absolute joke out of it or something. Beyond the Door is the ULTIMATE low budget schlocker.

i have seen this movie back in the exorcist year...never figure out this movie then because it was all chopped up..saw it 5 time too..but all of you guys who saw it back in the 70's.get the code red version,uncut,unrated and more details about Dimitri encounter with Jessica and the devil.it's like let's make a deal with Satan and get jag in return.a Rosemary's baby vs The Exorcist.it's also resorted.don't get the VHS version also.back than i gave it 4 stars.but code red version save the story and received a 7 stars.there is a scene that was cut that explain more about Dimitri's mystery approach toward Jessica.now the repeated words,the child must be born was driving me crazy.the final scene will leave you questing.i also found the cans of green peas as a tribute to the devil films.yes,it's a ripoff of The Exoricst and i believe they paid warner bother 90 millions as Julietta mills quote on the extra features...