User Reviews

SPOILER ALERT!!

This film is creepy for creepy's sake, created only to cash in on the popularity of its more famous sources-the Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby- and, unlike its sources, has no salient message about good vs. evil or the mystery of faith to offer its viewers. That being said, this is strange, Bava-informed Ovidio Assonitis film making at its best!! Ed Montoro and Assonitis had no greater ambition than to give the movie audiences what they wanted, and, in the 1970's, they wanted to be creeped out by demonically possessed women.

You want soup vomiting?, you got soup vomiting; you want to see TV's wholesome Phoebe Figalilly cuss and rage?-you got that, too!! You also have daring, if not failed, lighting experiments, smothering and fear-inducing camera work, and some amazing usage of color. That first head spinning scene is bathed in a harmless, toy-like pink that juxtaposes Jessica's evil leer at Gail so effectively, and with such great irony. That scene looks like a Tim Burton creation.

Of course, what critique of "Chi Sei?" would be complete without mentioning the beautiful shower of glass shards and slow-motion dying fish when Jessica tosses the ashtray at Robert's coveted fish tank, or the "What begins with G/toys coming to life" scene, or the flying eyeball that Sam Raimi borrowed and perfected as a variation of a Three Stooges gag in "Evil Dead 2?"

My favorite frame comes right before Jessica levitates out of bed. There is this close-up of her eye as it opens that is so broadly-drawn and colorful-a truly stunning image. That one frame shows me that Assonitis, if he had any sense at all, could have made some decent films. Fortunately, he was clueless, and chose to make movies like "Chi Sei?"

Assonitis really exploits Juliet Mills' strange eyes much in the same way Mario Bava did those of Barbara Steele in Black Sunday (Do a comparison of the American one sheets for this film and Black Sunday and see what I mean). There is no uglier possessed woman in drive in moviedom than Jessica Barrett, just as there is not a more beautiful actress when out of her possession makeup than Juliet Mills.

I like the way that Assonitis mixes the traditional Mercedes McCambridge voice-over acting with Mills' actual, witchy-sounding voice (when she does that creepy sing-song "he wants to steal my baby" during the infamous "brain scan" scene, weird vibes and cold chills abound).

The film stock for "Chi Sei?" stinks, and the so-called "Possessound" effect amounts to little more than amplifying the sound of someone snoring and laughing devilishly, but what other movie captures the spirit of 1970's rip-off drive in movie fare like this one?

And-dare I say it?-the soundtrack is far stranger, campier, and loungier than the well-loved "Vampiros Lesbos" soundtrack. All of that weird "Who are you? (the film's actual translated title)" business, and those strange giggles mixed in with the "Eurotrash" lounge music and the lysergic percussion effects creep out even those scenes that occur in broad daylight (why else would you be so freaked out over watching a woman eating a rotten banana peel if the music underneath it was not so disturbing?).

It's been said before: "Chi Sei?" is "so bad-it's good." It's damn good. What is your problem, Anchor Bay? This film had so much in the way of trailers and exploitative promotional ephemera when it was released that it begs for a fully-loaded nostalgic DVD treatment. Add to the mix that it had so many different titles in so many countries that you could pack a still gallery without blinking an eye.

Once in a while, the crew on the soap opera "Passions" (Juliet Mills' latest gig)will put Juliet Mills in a straight jacket, or will turn her into a goldfish, which persuades to me that the people who make this soap opera were less impressed with Juliet Mills' performances in "Avanti" or "The Other Sister," than they were with her turn as Jessica Barrett in "Chi Sei?," when they cast her as Tabitha the Witch.

"Chi Sei?" the terrible movie that everyone is afraid to say that they like. There is no fear in admitting that "Chi Sei?" is good for B-movie laughs and chills, so-confess.

Despite some corny moments (which include narration by The Devil himself), BEYOND THE DOOR boasts several very effective sequences. In one, which has to be a double exposure, we see Juliet Mills on her back, in bed, staring up at the ceiling. Her left eye remains stationary, but her right eye suddenly begins to wildly search the room. It's an unsettling effect. Another is the recreation of the infamous head-spinning scene from THE EXORCIST. Even as a kid, I realized that the scene in THE EXORCIST had employed a mannequin: the arms are outstretched and motionless, and the legs are clearly POSED. The makers of BEYOND THE DOOR simply staged the effect BETTER: Mills lies flat on her stomach, hands protruding above the covers to either side of her head, as her head slowly but very realistically rotates to face backward. Her rictus grin and her crazy-eyed expression really help sell the gag- another very effective moment. There are also some spooky sound effects throughout, and the storyline is better thought out and executed than some people seem to believe. Of particular interest to me was the appearance of Richard Johnson as the deceased but still hanging around Dimitri; he was always an actor who gave it his all, whatever the part. While it IS one part ROSEMARY'S BABY and one part THE EXORCIST, BEYOND THE DOOR is worth a look. (Kung Fu movie fans will recognize a lot of the canned music.)

Now, "Beyond the Door" isn't a complete dud, but it does suffer from one too many imbecile situations and overly tedious sub plots that go absolutely nowhere at all. Total lack of inventiveness and shamelessly stealing ideas from previous horror-blockbusters is one thing, but why did the duo of directors insist on stuffing their movie with so many incoherent & crappy padding story lines? There's so much going on in this film's script that never gets explained and only the actual satanic possession story elements (which hardly cover 50% of the whole film) deliver a handful of suspenseful moments and genuine frights. At 109 minutes (Japanese edition), the movie plays for far too long and, combined with the world's most awful dubbing job and insufferable cast members, this doesn't exactly form the most enjoyable viewing. It opens weird, yet mildly intriguing, with a voice-over introduction by no less than Satan himself! But already this monologue goes on for too damn long and your mind starts thinking stuff like: "Satan, shut up and start playing the movie already!" Subsequently we're introduced to a supposedly all-American family of four. The children, whose lines are ridiculously dubbed by adult actors, are annoying little brats that drink cold soup right out of the can (??) and read twelve identical copies of the same fairy-tales book. What the hell? Despite this family's weird characteristics, they lead a normal life until mother Jessica discovers she's pregnant again. Quite strange, since she has taken her birth control pill all the time and she and her husband Robert certainly aren't anticipating another baby (can you blame them?). Satan already informed us in his extended prologue that it will be the devil's baby, and it doesn't take too long before Jessica starts to behave strangely and very aggressive towards the helpful people in her surrounding. Robert and a befriended doctor try to work out an abortion while suddenly Jessica's former lover pops up. He – Dimitri – is one of Satan's disciples and insists on the baby getting born. This is somewhat the moment where the whole story inevitably goes to hell; working its way towards an incredibly dire and laughably pathetic climax.

The actual "possession" sequences as well as the obligatory gross make-up effects are embarrassingly similar to "The Exorcist". Poor Jessica vomits thick green stuff, uses a whole lot of imaginative foul language and her head even spins 180° around. The fetus growing inside her as well as the reactions of Jessica's surrounding, on the other hand, are more than clearly influenced by that other genre classic "Rosemary's Baby". Although they can't possibly deliver any shocks or surprises, the sequences illustrating Jessica's agony form the only highlights in the film. They're fairly intense with some excellently crafted, albeit low budget, gross out effects. Particularly this one scene in which the two children are trapped in their room and their play dolls come to live with eerie green eyes is rather frightening. Other scenes are redundant and indescribably stupid, like the supposedly infamous "flute scene" where Robert walks down the street followed around by musicians with instruments stuffed in their noses. The wannabe paradox ending is downright lame and makes you feel like you totally wasted 109 precious minutes of your life. Oh well, at least the direction is steady and the music is atmospheric. Other interesting (and much better) "Exorcist" clones include "The Antichrist", "Demon-Witch-Child" and "Abby". Still, "Beyond the Door" is much better than "The Eerie Horror Midnight Show".

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.

A somewhat effective mash-up of "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Exorcist," Ovidio Assonitis' "Beyond the Door" (1974) yet has little of the class and sophistication of the first or terrifying shocks of the latter. Released a year after "The Exorcist" kicked box-office tuchus (garnering $89 million; the No. 1 highest earner of 1973, if the book "Box Office Hits" it to be trusted), the film suffers from an aura of deja vu, but still has much to offer to the dedicated horror fan. In it, Juliet Mills (daughter of John, older sister of Hayley, but perhaps best known to American viewers as Phoebe Figalilly from the early '70s sitcom "Nanny and the Professor") plays Jessica Barrett, a wife and mother of two. She lives in San Francisco with her husband (a recording engineer played by Gabriele Lavia) and kids; in a further nod to "The Exorcist," one of these kids is an incredibly foul-mouthed little girl, while the son has the strangest habit of drinking cold Campbell's split pea soup from the can with a straw. (I know...ewwww!) Despite being on The Pill, Jessica finds herself miraculously pregnant, with her fetus growing at an alarming rate. She soon starts to evince some very odd behavior, such as eating banana skins off the street, along with violent mood swings and memory lapses. And that's nothing, compared to the inevitable head spinnings, levitations, sludge pukings and gravel-voiced cussing that soon follow. As a mysterious man from her past, Dimitri (Richard Johnson, star of the scariest film of all time, IMHO, 1963's "The Haunting"), tells her husband, Jessica has been taken over by "negative forces" (the "devil" word, strangely enough, is never used in the film)....

As I mentioned up top, though occasionally effective, "Beyond the Door"'s ultimate impact is less than it could have been, especially for those viewers who are already familiar with its two antecedents. Still, there are pleasures here to be had. The film opens very strangely, with Old Scratch himself delivering a monologue in voice-over, while hundreds of ritual candles fill the screen; indeed, this might be the most original segment of the entire film! The picture makes good use of its San Francisco and Sausalito locales, while the sound FX are possibly the film's single scariest component. Some other chilling instances: Jessica's initial leering head swivel; Jessica's booming query "Who are you?" (the film's original Italian title, "Chi Sei?," translates as "Who are you?"); and Jessica tossing her husband about the bedroom while simultaneously cackling and dribbling. Unfortunately, the film also contains much that doesn't make a heckuva lot of sense. For example, after two viewings, I'm still not clear as to whether Dimitri was alive or dead, or, if alive, what he was doing for the 10 or so years since his fatal car crash. His ghostly manifestations toward Jessica, those possessed dolls in the kids' bedroom, and that blank-mouthed baby at the film's end all provided further head scratchings. The film is also a good 20 minutes longer than it needs to be; that interminable scene with the street musicians, for example, could certainly have been done away with. And for those viewers who get a little restless with the film, try playing the game of counting how many times some of the characters say "The child must/will be born"; I counted a good eight. One further comment: the current DVD incarnation of "Beyond the Door," from the good folks at Code Red, looks just fantastic, and comes replete with many fine extras, including modern-day interviews with Assonitis, Mills and Johnson. Johnson, now in his mid-80s, looks and sounds terrific, by the way, and his, uh, devil-may-care attitude is a joy to behold....

I actually saw Beyond the Door before I saw the Exorcist. I became aware of BTD from a subway poster in Downtown Brooklyn. I remember being surprised that Juliet Mills was in the movie. Call it a rip off, but I disagree. It has a unique feel to it. The "possession" is only implied, since there is no exorcism in the film and the Devil is never mentioned. My two favorite lines: "Get out of here, you piece of s**t" and "Pain? What do you know of pain?"