the worst hotel in Louisiana - The Beyond (1981)
time to get the cake out as we celebrate this Substack reaching new levels of clownery!
DO NOT ENTRY.
Spoilers, I think??? Also I’ve deliberately not put any truly gory images in here, but I do describe some of the gore so trigger warning if you’re sensitive to eye trauma in particular and just gnarly violence overall.
The Beyond (1981)
AKA: E tu vivrai nel terrore! L'aldilà or 7 Doors of Death
Directed by: Lucio Fulci (credited as “Louis Fuller” in the US release)
Starring: Catriona MacColl (credited as “Katherine MacColl” ), David Warbeck, Cinzia Monreale (credited as “Sarah Keller” ), Antoine Saint-John, Veronica Lazăr
Running time: 87 minutes
Original release date: 29 April 1981
but first, a little primer on why we’re here today
Folks, we are gathered here on The Horror! The Horror! to celebrate two things today: 1) this is the fortieth issue, which is pretty massive for something that I started as “an occasional newsletter” back in 2022 - thank you for subscribing, for following, and for jumping on this clown train with me. And 2) IT’S LUCIO FULCI’S 97TH BIRTHDAY!
As to why we’re gathered here in Goblin Towers’ lavish living room around a giant eyeball shaped birthday cake celebrating a director who died quite some time ago? Dear reader, it’s because I am simply unable to let things go - somewhere around 2019 I happened to read a tweet that went along the lines of “going to start saying I can’t believe you would do this to me, on Lucio Fulci’s birthday”” and I found that just so objectively hilarious that it’s been part of my brain bandwidth ever since.
AND NOW I HAVE THE PERFECT PLACE TO SHARE THE JOY! COME GATHER ROUND THE EYEBALL CAKE, FOLKS!
Also, I should note, this is my introduction to Fulci’s oeuvre so please do not expect from me a profound take, that is very much the remit of my lovely friend Matt Rogerson, please go give Matt a follow.
the plot, in brief
1927, New Orleans, Louisiana - in room 36 of the Seven Doors Hotel, an artist and warlock named Schweick (Antoine Saint-John) works on a painting. His job? Protecting one of the seven gates of hell, which will bring about the end of mankind and the world if opened. A lynch mob breaks into the hotel, drags him to the basement and tortures him to death for practicing black magic.
1981, New Orleans, Louisiana - Liza Merrill (Catriona MacColl) has, to her surprise, inherited a hotel. She has moved to New Orleans with the intent of refurbishing and reopening the hotel, but strange things start happening from second one, and soon Liza starts questioning her own reality…
a poet and he is in fact incredibly aware of it
It’s difficult to do full granular exploration of a movie as surreal as The Beyond. The second in Fulci’s Gates of Hell trilogy (connected thematically, rather than plot-wise), it is a woozy, surrealist descent into a film that, as Fulci said, was intended as something that embodied a hellish experience.
Per Fulci:
“What I wanted to get across with this film was the idea that all of life is often really a terrible nightmare and that our only refuge is to remain in this world, but outside time.”
From second one you get the feeling that he is working from a very specific vision - the opening, in which Schweick is brutally murdered by the mob, is shot in a stark sepia tone, placing the viewer in a space outside of reality immediately. As I mentioned, I am new to Fulci’s body of work, but I am acutely aware of his reputation as “Poet of the Macabre”, and watching Schweick first get sliced up before getting nailed to a basement wall and drenched in acid was certainly enough evidence for me that he definitely deserved that title.
So, as we are operating in Fulci’s world of surrealist, liminal storytelling - I present to you once again a more freestyle approach to this issue as I give you, in no particular order:
a list of the most unhinged/bizarre/strange/Fulci moments in 1981’s The Beyond
We first meet Liza as she’s taking a walk outside the hotel, talking to her architect, Martin (Michele Mirabella) about the current renovations. They stop at the front of the hotel, where two workmen are on a scaffolding doing some building work (note: I have no idea what they are doing, I presume misc. builders stuff). One of them turns to a window, and out of absolutely fucking nowhere, sees a white-eyed apparition in the window which causes him to properly plummet to the ground. Quite why Liza’s first instinct is to take him inside and put him on the sofa to wait for a doctor (like, one singular doctor, not an ambulance, A DOCTOR) when he’s BLEEDING PROFUSELY AND ALSO ABSOLUTLEY EVERYWHERE baffles me.
Said doctor, John McCabe (David Warbeck)’s diagnosis re: the severely injured builder? He needs to go to the hospital.
The bell for room 36 rings several times, BUT HOW CAN THAT BE WHEN THERE’S NOBODY THERE????????
I cannot explain why, but the Joe’s Plumbing van gives me such strong Flowers By Irene vibes.
This:
As you do. You know that relatable moment where you accidentally open the gate to hell after uncovering a bricked off area in the flooded basement of the hotel you’re working in, yeah, so very that.
Martha (Veronica Lazăr) just materializing out of nowhere in the basement, with no previous introduction? Terrifying, thank you. It falls on her to discover the corpse of Joe and he does Not Look Well.
What remains of Joe gets carted off to the hospital where we are treated to the weirdest looking morgue ever committed to film - just a stark white and blue room, with all the bodies lying on one long table, all bagged up. It’s far and away the most unnerving Fulci vision in this film because it makes you question if you’ve accidentally stepped into one of your own nightmares.
Liza, while driving into town is stopped in the middle of seemingly nowhere (LIMINAL! SPACE!) by a blind woman in the middle of the road. Her name is Emily (Cinzia Monreale), she has a guide dog and she is also possibly a supernatural apparition given that it looks a lot like she is also in the sepia 1927 opening.
While having drinks with Dr. John, Liza gives us the one singular insight into her life up to that point and I feel like I can only do it justice by quoting it verbatim:
Dr. John: So, what did you do in the Big Apple?
Liza: Just about everything a girl could do without losing her good English breeding and reputation. Modeling, dancing, secretary... I almost became an unsuccessful fashion designer.
How does one almost become an unsuccessful fashion designer?
Anyway, the crux of this is that Liza refuses to give up on the hotel, despite John warning her, because she feels like it’s her last shot at making something of herself. I guess?
Emily tells Liza about Schweick, his painting, and how it was part of a seance to protect the world, with his assassination effectively a sacrifice to curse the land. She warns Liza not to go into room 36, before her hands begin to bleed and she runs off along with her dog - both of them making no audible footsteps…
Anyway, Liza goes into room 36 and GUESS WHOSE CORPSE IS STILL, SOMEHOW, HANGING FROM THE WALL?
Liza returns with Dr. John, intending to show him the everything going on in the room but finds the corpse of Schweick gone and the Eibon (the ancient tome which first appears in the sepia section of the film and which I have completely forgotten to mention) missing. Dr. John reacts a little bit like a dick quite frankly, telling her that oh, also, there’s no blind woman named Emily living in town.
Meanwhile, Martin falls off a ladder in the library and is very slowly eaten by a bunch of spiders in a scene which I am certain was put into this movie to test my nerve specifically because it goes on for a good while and it is every worst nightmare I have ever had about spiders.
The reanimated corpse of Joe emerges from the bathtub in room 36 and quite horribly kills Martha please do not question the logic of anything from this point forward, even more so than the proceeding minutes of this movie.
Dicky, Emily’s dog, bites her to death.
Yes, it’s gruesome.
Dr. John is eventually convinced that the hotel is one of the seven gates of Hell when he breaks into the house where Emily is supposed to live and finds the Eibon, which apparently can just be everywhere, all the time, it’s probably at your local Waterstones right now next to the new Colm Tóibín.
A character we have up until this moment never met, named Dr. Harris (Al Cliver), is found cowering in the corner of the hospital, where Dr. John and Liza come to try to find answers and instead find a bunch of the undead.
Dr. Harris is pretty much immediately killed in the film’s most unintentionally hilarious moment - Dr. John shoots through a window, which splinters in a way that shoots a giant shards of glass free and directly into poor Dr. Harris, we barely knew ye.
The film ends with the lines between reality and unreality completely blurred, as Liza and Dr. John think that they’ve escaped but have somehow ended up back in the basement. As they stumble through the flooded ruins, they find themselves inside the wasteland of Schweick’s painting, with no way out wherever they turn. The pair ‘s eyes turn white much like Emily’s and they disappear into the ether.
and you will face the sea of darkness, and all therein that may be explored
On a personal level, I am deeply intrigued by The Beyond - famously one of the Video Nasties in the UK (more on that in a few weeks’ time), one of Roger Ebert’s most hated movies, and yet a strangely haunting experience to watch. I would love to come back to this one in the context of the Gates of Hell trilogy specifically, because while it may look a bit like a mess, I think Fulci had a unique vision that matched his reputation as a poet of the macabre. Sure, that vision is gory (sometimes unbearably so) and on the surface haphazard, but it’s a vision nonetheless. One worth exploring.
So watch this space, I guess.
Please do read Becci Sayce’s article on The Beyond for Moving Pictures Film Club for more in-depth discussion, in the meanwhile. While you do that, I shall be here wishing Sig. Fulci a hearty buon compleanno.