Truly Dreadful Film

This is How Movies Should Be Made

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Blistering performances.

The rookie journalist Vivian (Kimberly Liebe) seeks Frederick (Christopher Kriesa), the caretaker of the oldest cemetery in an undefined country, asking for an interview and the old man tells the story of two "costumers" and both connected by a mysterious secret. The powerful gangster Jimmie Levinson (James Matthew-Pyecha) accuses his former partner Paul Pattuchi (Joe Cook) of stealing a load of cocaine and orders to kill his beloved girlfriend Clarice (Xenia Seeberg). Paul is found dead later in a cottage, and Jimmie and his friends and girlfriends are visited during a dinner party by Robert Downing (Daryl Jackson) first and then by the sadistic Mortimer (Simon Newby) and his partner Rick (Thomas Reitmair) seeking the truth about Paul and a suitcase with a mysterious relic. The second story takes place in the Middle Ages, where the cruel David Deming (David Creedon) and his minion Tom Brewster (Russell Friendenberg) chase the renegade priest James Flynn (Hank Stone) in the name of the Inquisition but actually trying to force him to reveal the secret of the Eternal Heart to grant immortality.The low–budget "Beyond the Limits" is extremely gore but is not a bad movie. Most of the performances are only reasonable, the choreography of the fights with sword is terrible, but I liked the plot. There is an enormous exploitation of violence, but the special effects are very impressive and realistic. The only work of director Olaf Ittenbach that I have had the chance to see is the awful "Legion of the Dead", and "Beyond the Limits" is better and better showing a great improvement in his career. The characters Mortimer (mainly) and Brewster are among the most sadistic I have ever seen. The torture at the dinner table and in the castle chamber, the massacre in the church and the trip to Hell are extremely impressive and strong, and of course not recommended to sensitive persons. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "Além dos Limites" ("Beyond the Limits")Note: On 30 May 2013, I saw this movie again.

Having read a lot about Premutos (another Olaf Ittenbach movie, often mentioned in the 'goriest horror of all time' debate), but unable to get hold of a copy cheaply enough, I opted instead for Beyond the Limits, a movie which might not have got such great reviews, but also promised to deliver its fair share of splattery delights.And boy, does the blood flow in this one. Ittenbach and his crew have created a gore drenched anthology-style movie with some of the most brutal scenes I have seen in a long time. In the wraparound story, a young female journalist interviews a cemetery caretaker for her newspaper; he tells her the shocking tale behind one of his recent 'customers' and then follows that up with another set in medieval times.The first story has a dinner party (attended by a group of mobsters and their wives) interrupted by a pair of ruthless killers. The sadistic assassins, hired by a man seeking vengeance for the death of his wife, set about slaughtering the party guests. But all is not as it first seems...The second sees a bloodthirsty inquisitor and his henchmen slaughtering innocent people in a quest to revive an ancient demon. Chock full of torture and gruesome deaths, this is definitely not for the squeamish.Ittenbach handles the direction confidently and there are some well filmed action scenes and great use of scenery and lighting. Unfortunately, he does also succumb to the use of annoying visual trickery and unnecessary MTV style editing (a particular bugbear of mine). The quality of acting varies from reasonable to very bad, but let's face it—it's the gore that really counts, and that is of a very high standard indeed: vicious, unrelenting and downright unpleasant, but very convincing.Beyond the Limits is not a film that should be watched by casual horror fans (it's way too disturbing for most viewers, I fear), but those who enjoy 'extreme' movie-making should be more than happy with the tour de force of revolting effects that splash across the screen.

Compared to Ittenbach's earlier films, definitely a step or two up in terms of camera work, production value, and overall professionalism. However, some criticism still applies: the acting is, well, somewhere between so-so and pretty abysmal. The dialogs are sometimes more than a little over the top, in general, though, it's not too bad. I don't believe, Ittenbach's films will ever win an Oscar for the best script, but on the other hand, I have had to endure much worse during my search for (halfway) decent splatter flicks. BTW: the English track is IMHO superior to the German dubbed version. Splatter effects are pretty good and--for the most part--effective, provided you catch the uncut version (106 minutes), although not quite as numerous as in Premutos. Beware of German rental version, it is cut by approx. 5 minutes. Recommended to Ittenbach and splatter fans. All others proceed at your own risk.

This is some god forsaken piece of blood soaked, gory piece of cinema. Then again calling it a piece of cinema is going a bit too far. This is just a collection of (good) SFX shots of mangled bodies and people getting slashed in all manner of fashions. I love violence in movies, but this is really Beyond The Limits. I have no idea of what those mad Germans were thinking, but this is too much. A little recap of what you can see in the movie^ - heads getting cut off - women raped - legs, hands? fingers ripped off - people tortured in every possible manner and so on and so on. To be honest, if I would have red this earlier I would have loved to see the movie, but now I have to admit that I feel kind of dirty. I'll go and take a long shower and not sleep for a week. Always knew ze Germanz are into this sort of thing :-) P.S. Almost forgot, the acting is the worst I have seen in any movie in all my life!!!