Halloween 2019: October 1st

The Beyond (1981)

I have reviewed surprisingly few Lucio Fulci films. When I was first getting interested in Italian horror, Fulci was always presented as the third point of a triangle of Masters of Italian Horror, with Dario Argento and Mario Bava being the other two. While I've become huge fans of Argento and Bava over the years, even listing them as two of my favorite directors. (Or, at least, one of my favorite directors and a director that used to be a favorite.) Fulci, however, never struck me as in the same league. His films sometimes have a cheesy, cheap element that the other directors lack. As a visual stylist, he's a bit tacky. As a teen, I enjoyed most of the Fulci films I saw but considered most of them little more than gore-soaked popcorn flicks... Except for “The Beyond.” “The Beyond” was exactly as brilliant as I had always heard.

In 1920s New Orleans, an artist paints unnerving images taken from a dread tome of occult lore called the Book of Eibon. His work so disturbs the masses, that a lynch mob hunts him down and murders him in a hotel basement. The same hotel basement, everyone is unaware of, that also contains one of the seven doorways to Hell. In the present day, Liza Merril has bought the hotel and is determined to restore it. Yet strange things continue to happen around the building. Liza spots a blind woman nobody else can see. People keep disappearing in the basement. Soon, a whole horde of zombies have emerged from the Beyond.

Like most of Fulci's films, “The Beyond's” plot is truly secondary to its actual purpose. The premise, of the gateway to Hell being under a hotel, is simply an excuse for a bunch of creepy, gory shit to happen to random people. What makes “The Beyond” one of Fulci's best film is the unsettling atmosphere of dread is creates. From its opening, black-and-white sequence, something about “The Beyond” feels truly sacrilegious. There's a nihilistic edge to its image of extreme violence, the victims dying in grotesque ways for pretty much no reason. That includes children and animals. The occult images presented in the film – a painting of shrouded bodies laying in a desert, people with whited-out eyes – hit with a surprising potency. This causes the surreal ending, almost lyrical in its inscrutable dream logic, to leave the audience with a chilled feeling.

“The Beyond” truly has an oppressive tone of doom, feeling genuinely apocalyptic at times. Yet it's still mostly a collection of gory murder scenes and attempts at scares. Granted, many of these moments work as intended. A pasty-faced zombie rising from a tub, slowly pushing a woman's head into a nail until her eyeball pops out, is a brilliantly grisly inversion of a similar eye trauma gag in “Zombi 2.”The striking blind woman, especially her tendency to spout off ominous warnings, is haunted in her room by a whole litany of undead spectres. The sequence where a little girl is pursued by an determined puddle of sulfuric acid always makes me feel extremely uncomfortable. There's no doubt Fulci had a flair for sequences of fucked-up violence.

Yet, as has often been the case in the past, Fulci's film is a little too preoccupied with the gory special effects. Too often, “The Beyond” completely stops in its tracks to focus in extended sequences of extreme gore. Right from the beginning, we get repeated shots of the artist being whipped bloody with chains. An eye-ripping goes by quickly enough, though its cheesily framed by the editing. The camera watches intently as acid slowly melts a woman's face away. Later, another similarly drawn-out scene involves spiders tearing a paralyzed man's face apart. While that gag is effectively gross, it just goes on and on. A seeing-eye dog turning violent has the same problem. The movie can't stop with the obviously fake dog ripping out a woman's throat. Instead, we need a follow-up shot of the dog biting the woman scalp in. Sure, the effects are cool but killing the pacing to focus on this stuff is another matter.

Though maybe this wasn't all Lucio's fault. In its last act, “The Beyond's” creepily sterile hospital sets are suddenly full of shambling zombies. The Italian zombie trend, created by “Dawn of the Dead” and spurned by Fulci's own “Zombie,” was still on-going in 1981. Even though it doesn't really function like a zombie movie, these flesh-eating corpse scenes were clearly inserted to latch onto the still-popular fad. Now, granted, these moments aren't without their own type of fun. David Warbeck is a fine zombie-slaying hero, running around and blasting corpses. An infamous moment, where Warbeck turns his gun on the undead little girl that's been appearing throughout the film, has never lost its shock. Fun though they may be, the scenes of shuffling corpses bumping into closed doors absolutely feel out-of-place though.

I guess my opinion of Lucio Fulci hasn't changed too much over the years. I still find some of his stylistic touches – like crash-zooms, which European horror directors just couldn't quit in the seventies – goofy looking. His obsession with gooey latex and sadistic dismemberment doesn't always leave much room for subtly. Yet “The Beyond” is an extremely spooky horror movie, at times. In its best moments, it feels like a cruel and unnerving snapshot from a hellish alternate dimension, a world without love or hope. At its worst, it's just a goofy zombie movie. Still, dread that powerful is worth something and “The Beyond” might be Fulci's best movie. [8/10]

The Tomb of Ligeia (1965)

“Masque of the Red Death” was successful but made slightly less money than the previous Poe films, which Roger Corman attributes to its artier presentation. Nevertheless, the decision was made to continue the Poe Cycle further. Corman would team with actor-turned-writer Robert Towne to adapt “Ligeia,” a less well-known Poe short story. Though the lead role was written with Richard Chamberlain in mind, A.I.P. insisted Vincent Price star. Yet perhaps “Masque” hadn't grossed less because it was too artistic but simply because the public's interest in the Poe Cycle was starting to wain. “Tomb of Ligeia” would be the least successful of the series and bring its run to an end.

Verden Fell, who has a sensitivity to light, is still mourning the death of his first wife, the mysterious Ligeia. Though she's been gone for some time, Ligeia's spirit still hangs over the spooky abbey Verden lives in. Through a chance encounter, he meets the vivacious and young Rowena. Despite Verden's obvious mental maladies, she is smitten and the two are quickly married. Their marriage is disturbed by Verden's increasingly unnerving obsession with Ligeia. To the point that even Rowena is having nightmares about the late wife and the strange black cat seemingly linked with her.

As with Poe's own stories, certain themes have reoccurred throughout Corman's cycle of adaptations. His “Ligeia” resembles his “Pit and the Pendulum,” with a not-quite-dead wife driving a man to madness. The idea of the spirit of a deceased spouse taking over a younger maiden's body already appeared in “Tales of Terror.” With the apparent avatar of Ligeia's rage being a black cat, Corman seems to be taking a second wack at that film's “The Black Cat.” Yet there is something compelling about these idea. Of a man grieving a dead wife so strongly, she literally takes over the life of his new wife. “Tomb of Ligeia” goes one step further by pretty strongly implying, in its final act, that Verden is a straight-up necrophile, taking the Poeian obsession with the beautiful, dead maiden to its logical conclusion.

Corman clearly took some of the lessons he learned on “Masque of the Red Death” to “Ligeia.” Color is used nicely, Rowena being associated with vibrant red roses early on, as opposed to the cold and tomb-like abbey Verdan lives in. The film features quite a few effectively spooky moments. When Verden first mistakes Rowena for his previous wife, attacking her, builds nicely. A moment when Rowena is successfully hypnotized and Ligeia's spirit emerges, in the light of the near-by fire, is quite creepy. There's the expected nightmare sequence, as Rowena is chased by that ominous black cat. Yet some of Corman's attempts to scare come off as more hokey than spooky. The occasional use of sped-up footage is distracting. Price's climatic fight with the black cat gets goofy fast.

While definitely too old to be playing this particular role, Vincent Price is still excellent as Verden. Few people could recite Poeian prose and make it sound so poetic, so eerie. A moment I especially like is when Verden realizes, in the middle of a monologue, that he's the one who desecrated Ligeia's grave. (And the vintage sunglasses he wears throughout the film look pretty cool too.) Elizabeth Shepherd does double duty as Rowena and Ligeia, convincing as both of the wildly different characters. Rowena is child-like and innocent. As Ligeia, Shepherd oozes a mysterious and foreboding energy. Which is just right for this film.

The Poe Cycle was fairly consistent in quality throughout its run. The odd Ray Milland starrer aside, all of these movies are actually quite good. “Tomb of Ligeia” might be the weakest of the bunch but that doesn't mean it isn't also pretty good. It has the same dreamy, spooky, gothic atmosphere. The same commitment from a strong cast, the same excellence in set design. Yet the series had run its course with the public, it seems, and that might've been for the best. I'm not sure I would've wanted to see Corman and Price try and weave feature films out of “The Oval Portrait” or  “The Imp of the Perverse.” [7/10]

Tales from the Cryptkeeper: Chuck (and Melvin) and the Beanstalker

“The Weeping Woman” isn't the only sequel episode “Tales from the Cryptkeeper” threw around in its second season. Chuck (and Melvin) and the Beanstalker is a sequel to season one's fairy tale parody, “The Sleeping Beauty.” Once again, we follow handsome but obnoxious prince Chuck and his resourceful but nerdy brother, Melvin. The two end up trading Chuck's beloved horse, to a mysterious trader, for some magic beans. Naturally, these beans grows into a giant beanstalk overnight. Chuck insists they climb into the abode above, in hopes of stealing the golden harp from the giant that lives there.

“Sleeping Beauty” wasn't among my favorite season one episode, as the comedy was a little too aggressively wacky and it lacked horror content. “The Beanstalker” makes most of those same mistakes. We do get a legion of multiplying, cycloptic giants that are mildly cool. In a decent gag, it seems everything has only one eye in Giant-Land, including the house cat. Otherwise, the comedy borders on obnoxious most of the time. Chuck is a seriously annoying character and Melvin, who we are ostensibly meant to root for, isn't much better. One is an idiotic blowhard and the other is too whiny and bitchy. Watching them interact produces few laughs and the episode's only other comedic element is too much slapstick. I have to say, I think this fractured fairy tales stuff is a rough fit for the E.C. Comics-inspired series. [5/10]

Forever Knight: Near Death

“Forever Knight” gets a little wacky as we entered the middle chapter of its second season. Nick, Schanke, and Natalie are sent to investigate the strangest thing: The dead body of a man found in a  film, clearly moved there from somewhere else but showing no signs of a struggle or homicide. Oh yeah, the guy was also dying of terminal cancer. The cops soon link the body back to an experimental laboratory trying to prove the existence of the afterlife. Nick becomes fascinated by the idea, recalling the near-death experience he had right before he became a vampire and wondering if that might be the answer to his quest for mortality. However, other intrigue is afoot at the research lab.

What I most like about “Near Death” is the spooky afterlife sequence it includes. One of the doctors, while wandering through a sandy desert, is attacked by a corpse pulling itself from the ground. Nick is repeatedly haunted by the image of a white door of light appearing in this same desert. His spirit guide – who takes on the form of LaCroix, of course – shows him an image of himself crawling with worms or a field, where all grave markers for all his victims are visible. Granted, the afterlife element eventually becomes cheesy, once it starts touching on sentimental messages or just flat-out explains to Nick his purpose. The murder/mystery element of this episode makes me feel nothing at all, the reveal being extremely obvious. Still, it is fun to see “Forever Knight” explore headier ideas like this while dipping its toes into more fantastical imagery. [6/10]