Highly Overrated But Still Good

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Seriously, for a fan of horror movies, I honestly thought this movie was ridiculous and just pure fake on killing the victims. It wasn't even that scary, it was just absolutely rubbish and like, none of it was that disgusting as you can see they were just melted dummies faces and dummies eyes being pop open. It just looks pure lazy and so cheesy to be honest with you! Also with the guy whose eyeballs were just bad heavy makeup and honestly for a zombie, he looked ridiculous as well as the rest of the "supposed" victims!Also you would see that the actors knew well what was going on by their sweet tones of voices. Honestly I found that there was no scare or no theme to this. They make me think that it was just a random 1980's thriller movie that will never be successful just like "Nightmare on Elm Street". Thats true but I've seen better 1980 horror films then this one, its just horrible and distasteful...........

This is probably my favorite horror movie of all time, and that stacks up against the pure genius of stuff like Phantasm, Evil Dead, Phenomenon and Dead Alive or any Romero. We have "Shocktoberfest" at my place every year over several nights, and I remember it being the 2008 election season when we watched The Beyond (like we do just about every year). We were totally blown away by John McCain and Joe the Plumber being in the same movie from 1981!!! Well, it's actually "John McCabe" but being that close to the election we could only hear "McCain," and our heads probably weren't on completely straight. Fulci is a master and transcends space-time to bring us the ultimate in fear and gore.

Just seen this movie. I am fan of Giallo movies and I honestly think that this movie is a must see for Giallo fans, like for example Argento's "Suspiria" or "Deep Red". To understand meaning of this movie for Giallo wave, you got to have knowledge about movies these days. The post Exorcist and Dawn of the Dead period saw many imitations. There were only a few directors that had actual imagination and creativity to set their movies apart from the rest. Of the bunch, Argento, Bava (father and son), and Fulci stood quite apart from the rest, each with their own talents and trademarks.Fulci's "visible" trademark, which is seen even in this movie and in his movie a few years before this one, "Zombie"(aka Zombie 2) is gory eye cutting scene, it is maybe a homage to Spanish director Luis Buñuel and his infamous scene from "Andalusian Dog".It is also having very nice cinematography with those dark shades of of lighting(especially at the beginning of the movie) and has a haunting score, suitable for this type of movies. The only thing which is "minus" for this movie is frame freezing at the end of a shot sometimes. Its dialogue is average for slashers and is suitable.Gory zombie slasher from an Italian horror maestro Fulci, would recommend it. 7/10

The Beyond is the middle chapter of Fulci's 'Death' trilogy (AKA 'Gates of Hell' trilogy). As I started watching this, I knew what to expect: Gallons of gore, lack of a coherent plot and a deeply cynical, downbeat tone. The movie is pretty much this and a wee bit more. What I didn't expect to see was a stunningly good cold open. Shot in rich sepia tone and with dazzling visual artistry, the scene showed Fulci could be every bit as artistic and flashy as Argento and Bava if he wanted to.Unfortunately, the movie went off the deep end with a lot of meandering punctuated with some brutal gore sequences. Fulci really likes to show us close-ups of his gore effects. During a scene of tarantulas biting off a man's face, I could almost taste the latex and fake blood. That said, the movie picks up during the last 15 minutes with a well-shot (pun unintended) zombie action sequence ultimately concluding with a brilliant display of the hell/purgatory/whatever-the-hell-it-was.MacColl is better here than in City of the Living Dead primarily because she is given more stuff to do. The male lead, David Warbeck lacks the class of Christopher George but makes up for it by looking the part of a doctor who is a crack-shot with a handgun. It was disappointing to not see Daniela Doria or Giovanni Lombardo Radice turn up after their wacky antics in City. Though we do get Mater Tenebrarum in an appropriately creepy role.Ultimately, at least to me, The Beyond, while watchable, is not the magnum opus of Dr. Lucio Fulci. Ah if only if the rest of the movie had been as good as the beginning...