"Beyond the Darkness" focuses on a young, wealthy heir whose beloved fiancé dies. In response, he steals her corpse from the graveyard, and puts his taxidermy skills to use to preserve her body and keep it in his home. Assisting him is his live-in maid, who has her own perverse kind of relationship with him.
One of schlock master Joe D'Amato's most well-known films, "Beyond the Darkness" is a nasty love story that, though it doesn't quite work as a character study, manages to keep its audience engaged by way of gore and a number of shocking moments. This film is downright nasty, with various slashings, stabbings, and disembowelments, all of which look unexpectedly realistic (the special effects team apparently used animal carcasses and flesh to shoot the close-ups, which perhaps explains why they appear so realistic).
While the violent set pieces are the main draw for most people, "Beyond the Darkness" is not simply a violent exploitation film--while it is over-the-top in the gore department, there is a downbeat, dark poetry built into the screenplay, and there are a number of parallels to other films in the same vein, particularly "Psycho" (1960) and "Deranged" (1974), both of which feature characters clinging to corpses as they mourn loved ones. Kieran Canter makes for a solid antihero here, while Cinzia Monreale spends most of the film lying in a bed in white makeup; Franca Stoppi is particularly effective as the duplicitous maid who is in love (rather sickly) with Canter's character.
Overall, "Beyond the Darkness" is a well-made horror film that has a bit more substance than your typical gore flick. It is well-shot, well-acted, and its violent content is at times jarringly realistic--it also serves as a minor meditation on loss and loneliness, though it's often hard to see through all the blood and viscera. 7/10.
One of schlock master Joe D'Amato's most well-known films, "Beyond the Darkness" is a nasty love story that, though it doesn't quite work as a character study, manages to keep its audience engaged by way of gore and a number of shocking moments. This film is downright nasty, with various slashings, stabbings, and disembowelments, all of which look unexpectedly realistic (the special effects team apparently used animal carcasses and flesh to shoot the close-ups, which perhaps explains why they appear so realistic).
While the violent set pieces are the main draw for most people, "Beyond the Darkness" is not simply a violent exploitation film--while it is over-the-top in the gore department, there is a downbeat, dark poetry built into the screenplay, and there are a number of parallels to other films in the same vein, particularly "Psycho" (1960) and "Deranged" (1974), both of which feature characters clinging to corpses as they mourn loved ones. Kieran Canter makes for a solid antihero here, while Cinzia Monreale spends most of the film lying in a bed in white makeup; Franca Stoppi is particularly effective as the duplicitous maid who is in love (rather sickly) with Canter's character.
Overall, "Beyond the Darkness" is a well-made horror film that has a bit more substance than your typical gore flick. It is well-shot, well-acted, and its violent content is at times jarringly realistic--it also serves as a minor meditation on loss and loneliness, though it's often hard to see through all the blood and viscera. 7/10.