First of all, I like horror films and have nothing against blood, gore & violence if it has any meaning to the film. But most of the gore in this film has no meaning at all, it just seems that Fulci was obsessed with overexaggerated scenes of blood & guts. For example the scene where a man falls from a ladder in the library. If it was some other director the man would have simply fallen and died when he hit the floor. But thats not enough for Fulci! After the fall the man is attacked by spiders who shred his face into a bloody mess! Really, what does that have to do with the rest of the film? Overall I think Fulci is way overrated. The reason i hunted down some of his movies (they are not too easy to get hold of in Sweden. Especially uncut) was that I had seen on the Internet that many horror-fans consider him one of the greatest horror-directors. I now have seen New York Ripper, Zombie, House By The Cemetary and this one and I find all of them to be plain garbage. It seems to me that Fulci was without any talent whatsoever. This movie is not scary, not funny, it is just ludicrous. The only way you can get something out of watching this is if you like to watch bad films like Plan 9 From Outer Space or if think it is fun to watch lots of fake-looking gore.
Review of The Beyond
