Beyond Darkness (La Casa 5) (1990)

With Metamorphosis, I could at least recall one specific moment; all I remembered about the first time I watched Beyond Darkness, however, was being extremely pissed afterward. Before re-watching it for this review, I couldn't tell you a single thing about it, but I knew that I was not a happy camper by the time it was over. And when I re-watched it, it didn't take long to remember why. While it starts out promisingly, with some nicely atmospheric scenes and moments, and a setting that personally appeals to me, as it goes on, it becomes increasingly over-the-top until, by the third act, it becomes an example of Italian horror films that try to be waking nightmares but do it badly. I don't find it to be as horrendous as something like Lucio Fulci's Manhattan Baby, which is one of the worst European horrors I've ever seen, but it's still pretty bad. And like Metamorphosis, it takes a lot of inspiration from several different sources that, no matter how hard it tries, are always going to be superior to it. That said, unlike Metamorphosis, and probably surprising to you, after I talked about how I remembered nothing but irritation, I didn't give it the Movies That Suck label. It's as surprising to me as anyone else but, while this is still a bad movie, and I find myself wishing it would just end when we get to the climax (there are a handful of moments where it seems to be wrapping up, only to keep going), I do think it's a bit more competently-made and better acted than Metamorphosis. Very faint praise, yes, especially since we're talking about a movie by Claudio Fragasso, but I didn't find myself as agitated with it upon re-watch, even if what's going on is just as convoluted and hard to get straight as ever.

At the Louisiana State Penitentiary, Father George Tommaso arrives to hear the final confession of Bette, a murderer who's been sentenced to death. But, rather than repent for the crime of killing ten children, she boasts about devouring their souls and taking them with her to hell, where she will give them to her master, a demon called Ameth. She also claims to be able to read minds, and offers George the chance to literally look the devil in the eye, giving him a book she says is her own personal Bible. She's then executed in the electric chair, and George sees an eerie vision of the souls of her young victims in the death chamber. Meanwhile, a reverend named Peter moves into a lovely house with his family: his wife, Annie, and their two children, Carole and Martin. While they like it, for the most part, Annie isn't too big on a creepy-looking, rocking black swan in the children's bedroom, and in a room upstairs, Carole finds a brick wall with a hole in its center that expels hot air and bright light, and from which she hears a voice calling her name. From the first night they move in, strange things begin to happen, such as the swan rocking by itself, and a gust of wind from outside that rips out the pages in Peter's Bible, manifesting the same drawing of a demon that was in Bette's book. By this point, George has left the church and now wanders around town as a drunk derelict, haunted by visions of Bette and the children she murdered. At the house, Carole has a dream where she's surrounded by women in black shrouds who talk about all of them becoming her mother, before putting her in a coffin, and after she wakes up, she's again drawn to the wall upstairs, where the air is now hot enough to burn her face. The strange activity becomes downright violent, as all hell breaks loose one night when the family sits down for dinner, with objects being thrown at them and menacing, shrouded figures appearing from swirling mist. Peter is able to ward them off with his faith but, when he goes to see his superior, Reverend Jonathan, the next day, he admits that he chose Peter to drive away the evil spirits within the house. He also tells him what has happened to George, who believes that the demon Ameth is now with him always. And as the evil presence in the house increases in strength and abducts one of the children, Peter's faith alone may not be enough to save his family.

At the end of its plot synopsis on the back of the Scream Factory Blu-Ray, Beyond Darkness is summed up like this: "This tale of terror comes from Claudio Fragasso, the director of Troll 2 (so you KNOW it's good!)." Yeah, any cult film fan worth their salt will know who Fragasso is and how that statement relates to the movie's quality. Known for both his owns films as writer/director, as well as his initial screenwriting and often uncredited co-directing work with Bruno Mattei, another well-known figure of these types of B-movies, Fragasso will probably always be remembered best for directing Troll 2, the so-called best worst movie of all time (it's not in my opinion, but that's beside the point). Beyond Darkness is not quite as inept as that but still, when viewed alongside other films of his, like Monster Dog with Alice Cooper, After Death, and Night Killer, it speak volumes as to his level of "talent." And yet, looking at his filmography on IMDB, he's continued getting steady work right up to the present day, and still mostly in features, rather than being reduced to television or shorts, as you might expect.

As you've gathered from its alternate title, Beyond Darkness is also technically an entry in a series, collectively called La Casa... only it's a series of films that are mostly unrelated. Similar to how Dawn of the Dead's release in Italy resulted in the Zombie series of films, La Casa began when The Evil Dead was released in Italy under that name, with Evil Dead II then being released as La Casa 2. Because they were both big successes, Italian filmmakers began capitalizing on them by making fully homegrown "sequels," with Joe D'Amato making La Casa 3, which was released elsewhere as Ghosthouse; Fabrizio Laurenti directing La Casa 4, or Witchery; and this film, originally titled as La Casa 5. And just as how many unrelated movies were marketed as further entries in the Zombie series in various countries (including Fragasso's own aforementioned After Death), two other movies were released in Italy as La Casa 6 and 7: House II: The Second Story and The Horror Show, aka House III. Why those two and not the first House, I have no clue, but, talk about confusing, especially given how The Horror Show wasn't marketed as a third House movie in the United States but was elsewhere, and was followed by House IV, regardless. Still, it's not nearly the confusing clusterfuck that the Zombie series is.

Beyond Darkness is not just any other shitty Italian horror film... it's another shitty Italian horror film that stars Gene LeBrock, as another character named Peter, no less. This time, he's a reverend and loving family man who moves his family into a seemingly innocuous house in the Louisiana countryside, only for strange things to begin happenning. At first, they're fairly mundane, like strange sounds and the lights going out momentarily, but they become increasingly horrific the longer the family stays there. However, as with a lot of haunted house flicks, as freakish as the haunting activity becomes, they don't just move out. In fact, Peter is remarkably blase about it at first. When a strong gust of wind blows through his and his wife's bedroom window, ripping out the pages in his Bible and seemingly placing a drawing of a demon within it, his response is to simply read some ancient language that's now on the page, with an expression that says, "Huh, that's weird." And after things go crazy during dinner one night, with demonic voices coming from the radio, before it blows up, the lights exploding, plates, glasses, and other objects getting flung at them, and the house suddenly being invaded by creepy shrouded figures, which Peter has to ward off by reading from the Bible while brandishing a crucifix, what does he tell Reverend Jonathan the next day? "Strange things are happening in that house." Bit of an understatement, wouldn't you agree? Moreover, when Jonathan suggests that the house is possessed, Peter responds, "No. It isn't possible. I don't believe in these things!" So, I guess seeing isn't believing for some people. And yet, when Jonathan insists that he chose Peter to drive out the evil spirits at work in the house, he doesn't continue denying it, instead saying that his family is involved and thus, is at risk. He realizes just how true that is when he runs into George Tommaso, who warns him that those entities have caused his daughter, Carole's, recent high fever, and he returns home that night to learn his family was attacked again while he was out. Moreover, his son, Martin, is abducted and taken to the other side, and when they seemingly retrieve him, they find he's become possessed. Now, Peter has no choice but to turn to George, who was once an exorcist, for help.

As bad as those bits of acting that I've described are, LeBrock is a little better here than he was in Metamorphosis, specifically in the scenes where you see what a loving, playful father and husband Peter is. One truly endearing moment is when, just as they're about to have their first dinner in the house, the lights go out and he goes to check the fuse. Annie tells him to be careful and he assures her, "I know where I'm going." That's followed by some loud clattering, and when the lights come back on just as suddenly as they

went out, he walks back in, wincing from the small of his back. As they laugh, he admits, "So, it wasn't a fuse." In another scene, when he and his family are outside, Martin hears the phone ring in the house, Peter tells him, "First one to get the phone wins a dollar on the count of three, okay?" But Martin doesn't wait for his dad to get past "one," as he takes off running, much to Peter's amusement. And after he's answered the phone and given it to Peter, he sticks out his hand, demanding that dollar, which

Peter gives him. On the phone, Reverend Jonathan describes Martin, whom he briefly spoke with, as, "A very clever boy," and Peter responds, "He's too clever." But, like with Metamorphosis, during the more dramatic scenes, especially during the third act, when George tells Peter what's going on and why he and his family are being targeted, LeBrock again proves why he didn't have much of a career. When George tells him about how the coven of witches at the center of the haunting would kill children, take their souls to hell, and have the demon Ameth devour

them, Peter exclaims," That's heresy! George, those souls must first be judged by the Lord!... This is no time to challenge theology!" Not is it another example of LeBrock's often stilted manner of delivering dialogue, but Peter's tone is such that he seems to be blaming and accusing George for it. And in the end, for all of his supposed faith, which is suggested to be part of the reason why he was targeted, and allows him to save George's very troubled soul, Peter proves to be a pretty ineffective protagonist. His and

George's prolonged exorcism of Martin is ineffective, and when he goes to the other side to truly save Martin, he ends up getting possessed himself. It's only thanks to Reverend Jonathan's intervention that both he and his wife are able to escape with their son. But even then, it seems like that wasn't enough.

As I've been watching this movie, I know that I've seen Barbara Bingham, who plays Peter's wife, Annie, somewhere else, but I couldn't place her until I looked her up on IMDB and learned she was in Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, one of my personal favorite movies in that series. While it was cool to learn that, I can't say that her character of Colleen Van Deusen is one of the better parts of that movie... but that's not quite the case with Annie. Granted, for much of the movie, she doesn't have that much to do, but you can tell that she and Peter have a good marriage, and that she's a great mother to their children. She also proves to be the type of mother who would do anything for her kids. When Martin is first taken into the other world, Annie literally jumps through a portal within a mirror to reach him when she sees his anguished reflection in it, and then chases after an image of him being taken away. Also, before that, while Peter was in town to see Reverend Jonathan, you learn that Annie and the kids managed to fend off the witches when they attacked again. However, Annie got so worked up about it that, when Peter returns home, she comes running at him with an axe and very nearly kills him with it! Going back to the kids, when the possessed Martin, whom she and Peter brought back from the other side, tries to take Carole there, Annie intervenes. While she doesn't completely trust George, due to how he's been spiritually tainted, she reluctantly does as Peter says and takes Carole to safety over at Reverend Jonathan's church. But when they get there to find that Jonathan is unwilling to help Peter and George, Annie leaves Carole there while she goes back to the house. Unfortunately, when she gets back there, George has died and Peter has been possessed. Annie also almost falls prey to the evil herself, with Bette trying to push her and Peter into staking Martin, who claims that he wants to die, with a bladed crucifix. It's only when Jonathan decides to step up and intervene that they're able to escape.

In one of this film's many connections to Poltergeist, as well as the similar Twilight Zone episode, Little Girl Lost, Peter and Annie's daughter, Carole (Theresa Walker), initially seems to be the evil spirits' specific target. Shortly after they move in, Carole, who's never far from her beloved teddy bear, Johnny, is drawn upstairs to the room where the brick wall has a large hole in its center that blows out hot air. Initially, she thinks there's a blow-dryer behind, but later on, when she goes back up there after having a

nightmare about the coven of witches putting her in a casket with a glass window, and her face is burned, she says, "Now, I know what it is. It's an oven used to burn bad children like me." Shortly afterward, after they've experienced their first truly threatening instance of haunting activity, she gets a bad fever, which George says is part of the witches' attempt to keep them from leaving the house. And when they attack again that night, Carole and her brother Martin (Michael Stephenson) are separated from their parents, and Martin is taken to the other side by Bette. (And yes, if Stephenson's name and face are familiar to you, that's because he was Joshua in Troll 2. Somehow, Claudio Fragasso convinced either him or persuaded his parents to have him appear in another of his films.) Martin is portrayed as a mischievous but likable kid, as he playfully scares Carole during the scene where she tells him about the "blow-dryer" behind the brick wall, acting like he's now a zombie, and tricks his dad into giving him a dollar, as I talked about earlier. When they're separated from their parents during that second attack, Martin does everything he can to defend his sister. But, once he's taken into the other world, it's possible that we never see the real Martin again, save in some of the visions that Annie has. While he's retrieved from the other side, he's now a possessed pawn of the witches. At one point, he tries to take Carole to the other side, but is stopped. Carole is then taken safely to Reverend Jonathan's church, while Peter and George, and later him and Annie, try to save Martin's soul... something they ultimately fail at.

One of the best characters in the film is Father George Tommaso (David Brandon), a Jesuit priest who finds himself tainted with evil at the beginning, when he visits Bette before she's to be executed. She tells him that she can sense how he wants to know the truth, to come face to face with the devil, and that her master, the demon called Ameth, will appear to him and grant his wish. It happens as soon as she's executed, with George seeing visions of the children she murdered, and he ends up leaving the priesthood. He wanders the streets, drunk and disheveled, and spouting diatribes at random passersby. But, as it goes on, he attempts to deal with and come to terms with what's happened. He appears to Peter after the evil spirits have first attacked his family, offering to help, as well as warn him that the spirits won't allow them to escape so easily. George also claims to be winning his personal battle against Ameth, saying he's passed the fourth of five phases but needs Peter's help with the last: expulsion. Peter turns him down, and George, in turn, goes to Reverend Jonathan's church and asks him for help, as well as tells him that Peter's faith won't be enough to save him or his family. Jonathan turns him down, and George, calling him a coward, heads to Peter's home, arriving after Martin has been abducted. Sensing that Martin is still in the house, but that the witches have taken him through a gateway to hell, George tries to help Peter and Annie free him. But after they seemingly do so, George is the one who sees that Martin's soul is actually still inside the house, and explains that what they brought out was his possessed shell of a body.

George explains to Peter that the reason for the haunting is the burning of twenty women, many of whom were innocent, for witchcraft centuries before, at the very spot where the house was built. He also shows Peter the book that Bette gave him, telling him of how the witches worshiped Ameth, and that they murdered children, took their souls to hell with them, and literally fed them to the demon. And on top of that, he explains that they're targeting Peter and his family because of how pure his faith is. He further

suggests, "Perhaps it's because we think that our contact with the Lord makes us more immune than the others, because we have the audacity to believe we have some kind of special ticket to paradise. They want to put us to the test... Their dark powers against the two of us: a faithless ex-priest and a family man who happens also to be a reverend." When the possessed Martin tries to take Carole to the other side, George insists that Peter get both Carole and Annie out of the house, sending them to the church, while

the two of them attempt to exorcise Martin. However, George's lack of faith momentarily causes him to falter, but when Peter declares that he's going to try to save his son, despite his own fear, it gives George what he needs to go on. The two of them then perform the exorcism, which does seem to work, only for the still-possessed Martin to pull a trick that leaves Peter unconscious. George is then faced with a vision of Martin sitting in the electric chair, with Bette's evil spirit trying to tempt him to throw the switch and damn Martin's soul, making himself a true

servant of Ameth in the process. She tells him that it'll allow him to know everything he's ever wanted to know but, despite this temptation, he instead tries to help Martin escape. This results in Bette and the witches strapping George himself to the chair and symbolically damning him through electrocution. When Peter arrives, George is lying on the floor, raving about how damnation does exist, but Peter gives him the last rites, saving his soul. Before he dies, he tells Peter what he must do to save Martin, and warns him about the witches' evil power.

Besides Gene LeBrock, another holdover from Metamorphosis is Stephen Brown, who played Prof. Lloyd. Here, he's Reverend Jonathan, Peter and George's superior who sent the former to the house, hoping he could expel the evil within it. He considered the two of them to be "lilies in my garden," but when Peter comes to see him about what's happened in the house, Jonathan warns him about George, referring to him as a "blackened lily." That blackened lily later visits him at the church and calls him a coward, saying he lives there, treating it like his own personal fortress, because he fears the powers of darkness. George also warns him that he will eventually have to take part in the battle, and during the third act, that does come to pass when Annie and Carole are sent to the church for safety. Annie implores Jonathan to go help Peter and George but he says he can do nothing but pray for them, saying he's too old and weak. She then goes back to help, leaving Carole with him. Once the two of them are alone, Carole lays the guilt on him: "Johnny says you're bad, and it's all your fault." But, in the end, Jonathan does intervene, using his spiritual power to break Bette's hold on both Peter and Annie, and stop them from killing Martin, as well as allow them to defeat Bette and escape the house, which he combusts into flame, with Martin. However, he ultimately dies from the strain of it all.

The one concrete villain we have here, as we never actually see Ameth, is Bette (Mary Coulson), a serial killer who's executed at the beginning for murdering ten children. When George visits her, she boasts about how, when she's dead, she'll take their souls to hell and give them to Ameth, after which he'll reward her. She also claims to have been sent to Earth to collect innocent souls for him and, sensing George's wavering faith, says that Ameth will appear to him and tell him everything he wants to know. With that, she gives him her own personal Bible, which later tells George what's happening at Peter's house. And as she's taken away, she tells him, "Come, priest. I want you to witness my last orgasm. We will be together, you and I! Together in hell!" Following her execution, Bette reappears in one of George's visions, where she gathers the children in a school bus and drives off with them, symbolically taking them to hell. Her spirit also appears amongst the witches in the house, as she personally takes Martin to the other side and tells Carole that she'll be next. And she reappears during the third act, first to tempt George into damning Martin's soul, only to then do so to George himself, and almost gets both Peter and Annie to stake Martin with a crucifix that has a blade coming out of its top. Again, it's only thanks to Reverend Jonathan that they're able to resist her influence and escape, but not before they stake her with the crucifix instead.

Mary Coulson not only gets to chew the scenery whenever she appears as Bette, but she goes through various stages of makeup and costume. When George visits her at the penitentiary, she's already striking in the way she looks, with her shaved head and intense face, and when he has the vision of her taking the school bus of the children's souls to hell, she looks like a schoolmarm, with a suit and sunglasses, as well as hair that's done up in a bun! Then, she starts appearing among the witches in the house, wearing

their black shroud and looking even uglier than she was in life, with milky white eyes and skin that seems to glisten in the mist. By the time of the third act, she looks hideously decayed, with her flesh looking like clay and bloody wounds here and there, and her voice becomes otherworldly.

I loathe to admit it, as I think he's not only a hack but a horribly deluded, douchey one at that, but, I have to be honest: since Claudio Fragasso had more filmmaking experience than George Eastman, it explains why Beyond Darkness is a more competently-made movie than Metamorphosis. It still has that unmistakable soft, kind of hazy look of low budget, Italian horror and exploitation films from this period, but Fragasso does manage to make it fairly visually interesting, regardless. The nighttime interior scenes, when all of the lights are off, have that lovely,

blue moonlight effect we've seen before, with the characters shrouded in partial or total darkness, and when the witches, as well as the other side, manifest themselves, the house appears to become filled with mist, similar to what you often see outside the house at night, along with a very bright light. This is especially true of the third act and climax, when the characters literally go over to the other side, and it's so bright and hazy that you almost can't make out their surroundings. Fragasso also creates some eerie

and memorable images, like that black swan in the children's bedroom rocking back and forth in the middle of the night, the shots of that brick wall with the hot air and light coming through the hole in its center, the portal that appears there later, George's visions of Bette's young victims and the woman herself, and the black shrouded figures of the witches moving through the brightly-lit haze and their faces pressing through the wall in one scene. And he does well with the camerawork and editing, ensuring that, at least visually, you can mostly tell what's going on (narrative-wise, it's a different story, but we'll get to that).

While Beyond Darkness does have a lot in common with Poltergeist, it's also reminiscent of another Italian horror film: Lucio Fulci's The Beyond. This comes down to not only some similar plot points but also in how, like that film, it was both shot and is set in Louisiana, and, most significantly, the house that Peter's family moves into is the same one featured there (that house was also used in Killing Birds, which got turned into Zombie 5 in the United States)! Like in Fulci's film, that house is definitely a great setting, as it's quite beautiful and scenic, set on a

lovely piece of land surrounded by trees, but there's also something ominous about it, particularly at night, when the outside is all misty. The inside is quite spacious, with long corridors, a big foyer, large sitting room, and various rooms and sections that are separated by doors with glass windows, but many of the rooms themselves, such as the kitchen, dining room, and bedrooms, are actually kind of small. The most notable rooms are the kids' bedroom, with that spooky black swan that acts as a kind of rocking

chair; the upstairs room with the brick wall that's actually a portal to the other side; and this other upstairs room with old, covered furniture, which is where Annie enters the other world when she sees Martin's reflection in a mirror. There's also a creepy attic, which is similar to the one in the original Hellraiser, but, surprisingly, nothing happens up there. Most of the action is confined to the house, but the film begins at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, where we see the exterior and long corridors of the death row block, as well as the execution chamber after Bette has been fried. And there are also scenes set at Reverend Jonathan's big, elegant church, both in the actual chapel and his office.

I really hate to make this comparison, as I know I'm probably going to catch some flack for it, but the other side, or hell, or whatever it is, also reminds me a bit of Hellraiser, specifically the Cenobites' dimension. That's not because its look is at all similar, but due to how it still feels like it's contained within the house itself, rather than going to some big, expansive world beyond the threshold (not that they would've had the money for that, anyway). Even when Annie first enters the portal and sees an image of Martin being driven away in a hearse, it still looks

as though it's taking place in an interior, akin to a barn. Like in Hellraiser, the idea that this horrific, nightmare world literally exists within the house's very walls is a creepy one. And I will also admit that what they do with it is an interesting way to get around budget restrictions, which is make use of the aforementioned bright lights and thick mist, along with veiled curtains and just a hint of architecture, like walls and arches, giving it an unusual, otherworldly feeling all its own.

Contextually, the ties to The Beyond are the white eyes of both the witches and the possessed, and the basic plot of a seemingly normal house containing a gateway to hell from which evil spirits emerge, except that, in this case, it's upstairs rather than in the basement. Of course, the film also takes inspiration from other well-known haunted house stories, such as The Amityville Horror and, especially, Poltergeist, namely in the plot-point of one of the kids being taken to the other side. However, the section where both of the parents go into the alternate dimension to

to save their son is not only akin to Diane Freeling going after Carol Anne (and there's another connection, given how Peter and Annie's daughter is also named Carole), but is also very much like the Little Girl Lost episode of The Twilight Zone, where a girl falls through a portal in her bedroom wall and her father ultimately has to go in to save her (it's often believed that episode was itself inspiration for Poltergeist, something its writer, Richard Matheson, noted). But while Martin is seemingly saved almost immediately, it turns out that what Peter and Annie

came back with was his possessed shell. As a result, the movie then becomes a ripoff of The Exorcist for a little bit. Not only do Peter and George indeed perform an exorcism on Martin, but the build-up is similar, as they prepare for the battle downstairs, then head up to the children's bedroom, where Martin is laying on his bed. While the following scene is not as graphic and gross as in that film, it is very similar, in how they recite passages from the Bible and sprinkle Martin with holy water, while he writhes around, yells

in a demonic voice, his eyes turn a sickly green, and he develops scars on his face. They even repeatedly chant an incantation akin to, "The power of Christ compels you!", namely, "You are banished in the name of Christ!" You also have one priest who has lost his faith but regains it by the time he dies at the end; the difference is that it's the older, more experienced priest who's having a crisis of faith. And finally, there's a little bit of A Nightmare on Elm

Street and even possibly Phantasm, with the dream that Carole has about the witches standing, the witches' faces coming through the wall in one scene, the bright white lights from the other dimension, and the overall dream-like quality of the film, especially the third act.

Going back to the Poltergeist connection, another similarity is how the haunting activity starts out fairly subtle, with spooky sounds in the house, that swan rocking back and forth by itself in the middle of the night (I can't stress enough how genuinely creepy that moment is), and the lights going out and coming back on for no reason, but it doesn't take long for things to suddenly get extreme. Following the scene with the swan, you have the blast of air from outside that rips the pages out of Peter's Bible and seems to plant both a drawing of the demon and what's later revealed to

be the witches' chant within it, Carole's dream and her face subsequently being burned, and the first full-on paranormal attack, where freakish chanting and a white light emit from the dining room's antique radio, all sorts of objects, including a meat cleaver, are flung at the family, and the witches appear in the house and chase after them for the first time. From there, it just gets wilder, with Martin being taken, Peter and Annie going in after him, the possessed Martin trying to take Carole through the portal, and the climax, with Peter

and George's attempted exorcism, George's temptation, damnation, and redemption, and the final confrontation with Bette, resulting in the house being destroyed. The only difference is that, with Poltergeist, you understand the parameters and the reason for the haunting, whereas here, that goes out the window by the time you reach the third act.

Like a lot of Italian horror films, especially those that deal with the supernatural, Beyond Darkness starts out seemingly grounded but becomes more and more detached from reality, to the point where, when you get to the third act and the climax, little makes sense. I've talked in the past about how there are movies like this that I do enjoy, such as the aforementioned Fulci flick The Beyond, some of his other films, like City of the Living Dead and The House by the Cemetery, Dario Argento's Suspiria, or many of Mario Bava's films. If it's done well, it is possible for me to turn the

logical part of my brain off and just enjoy the crazy and often ghoulish imagery. Beyond Darkness, however, fails at this, mainly because the story is so clumsily put together and convoluted. With these kind of movies, you need some sort of understandable or, at the very least, basic foundation for the nightmare to spring from. Many of them start out as a mystery that the ensuing film builds upon, as this does, with George's encounter with Bette at the prison and what happens to him afterward seeming unrelated to what

happens when Peter and his family move into the house. But we learn that Reverend Jonathan taught both Peter and George, and also sent Peter to the house, knowing of the evil within it, in hopes that he could cleanse it. After George arrives at the house, and Peter and Annie have brought Martin back from the other side, only to learn his soul is still in there, we're finally told that the house was built on the site where twenty women were burnt at the stake for witchcraft, many of whom were actually innocent. So, it's a simple matter of the house being haunted by their angry souls, many of whom are full of hate because they were killed for no reason, right? You'd think, but no.

First off, they specifically mention the New England witch trials at one point, even though this is Louisiana! Unless the film switches locations after the opening, which it makes no hint of at all, that's a major error right there. Second, even though George talks about the slaughter of innocents along with actual witches, and that the area has had to live with it for the past few centuries, this issue never comes up again. Not only does George go on to describe the witches' evil deeds and the details of their rituals, specifically their worship of Ameth, which he gets

from the book that Bette gave him, but all of the shrouded, decayed figures that manifest come off as wickedly evil as you'd expect witches to be, making it seem as if all twenty of them were guilty. Third, while Bette was herself a worshiper of Ameth and likely a modern day witch, given that she had that book, it doesn't make sense for her to appear within the house, unless if George were the only one to see her, which he isn't. Fourth, when he and George are discussing it, Peter asks why the spirits are after him specifically, and George says it's because of his pure faith and how

he can save damned souls. Um, that's funny. I was under the impression it was likely because Jonathan sent him there to drive them out of the house. And just a minute or so later, George himself asks why he, as well as Peter and his family, are being targeted, and comes up with that, admittedly interesting, suggestion that it's because they consider themselves spiritually superior due to their being attached to the church. Again, I thought the answer was already obvious, that George was specifically victimized because of his

wavering faith and desire to know the truth of life and death. (In fact, while I hinted that his subplot of being haunted and partially possessed does become tied to Peter's situation, it's only because Bette manifests in the house. Even then, it could've easily been removed from the film without it affecting anything.) Fifth, Martin's possession: who or what's possessing him? The witches? Ameth himself? And how is it at all possible to save him if his body has been completely separated from his soul and is now inhabited by whatever this evil is?

Then, on top of all this already bad screenwriting, which Fragasso himself had a part in, there are all of the allusions to and flat-out ripoffs of other stuff, which the film buckles under the weight of. Either do a demonic possession movie or a haunted house movie. And during the latter half and the third act, not only is so much being thrown at you, one after the other, but after the hour mark, there are many times where it feels like the movie is going to end, only for it to keep going. The exorcism on Martin feels quite climactic, especially given how long it takes and how

dramatically it's played, but then, after he's seemingly been saved, Martin suddenly separates himself from Peter while they're on their way back downstairs, and Peter is then knocked unconscious by Bette. Next comes the scene where George comes across the sight of Martin in the electric chair, with Bette tempting him to damn the kid's soul by throwing the switch, leading George to become a servant of Ameth and learn what he wants to know. George, despite the temptation, fights back, drives Bette away with holy water, and goes to release Martin... only for it to turn

out to be Bette. George is then fastened to the chair himself and Bette damns him by throwing the switch. Peter comes back upstairs, chops his way through the door with an axe as George is electrocuted, and when he gets through, sees him on the floor, seemingly doomed to eternal damnation. But, Peter is able to save him, and goes to get his son... only for Annie to arrive back at the house, go upstairs, and enter the other world, where she finds Martin lying in a coffin, with a possessed Peter and Bette trying to get her to

sacrifice him by staking him with the bladed crucifix. (By the way, this takes the wind out of what seemed like a triumphant, heroic moment for Peter.) She and Peter almost do so, until Reverend Jonathan intervenes from his church, managing to break Bette's hold on them so they can stake her instead, then escape with Martin. They rush out the front door and gather into the car, when it stalls. As the witches come through the door, they're about to attack the car, but Jonathan's continued prayer causes the house to

burst into flames and stop them in their tracks, allowing Peter to finally turn the engine over and speed away. So, now it's for sure over, right? Sadly, as Fragasso often felt the need to do, he pulls the rug out from under this victory by revealing that Martin is still possessed at the very end. It's not shocking, but just makes you facepalm, and by this point, you're too annoyed to even attempt to rationalize how that's possible.

There's barely any bloodletting in this film, with the most significant being at the end, when Bette gets stabbed by the bladed cross and a bunch of blood oozes out of her mouth. They also effectively create the feeling of somebody who's been put through the electric chair, with lots of foam coming out of George's mouth when Better puts him through it, as well as some bloody burns on his forehead and hand afterward. Aside from that, the only other makeup effects to talk about are the actual character designs, like Bette's, which I've already described, the witches,

which are mostly hidden by their veils but you can tell from what you see that they're pretty hideous, and the possession makeups on Martin, George, and Peter, all of which do their job, even if they're derivative of other works. The physical effects of the objects being flung, most notably the meat cleaver, the possessed, exploding radio in the dining room, the faces coming through the wall, and the house combusting during the climax all come off well, although during the ending credits, they continuously repeat the same

footage of the house combusting and burning (it makes me think of how Roger Corman got a lot of mileage out of the burning barn footage he first used for the climax of House of Usher). And there are some occasional visual and optical effects, mostly for when George sees his visions of Bette and her young victims, and when Annie sees Martin reflected in the mirror after he's been taken. However, the shot of her literally jumping through the mirror to reach him is very brief but, as you can see, looks absolutely terrible. It's definitely the worst-looking moment in the film.

The music was the work of Carlo Maria Cordio, who was no stranger to Italian B-movies, or Claudio Fragasso, for that matter, as he also scored both Troll 2 and Night Killer, as well as some of Bruno Mattei's movies. Funnily enough, he also scored Witchery, the previous supposed entry in the La Casa series, and Killing Birds, which, again, used the same house that appears here and in The Beyond. In any case, like with Metamorphosis, one of Beyond Darkness' best assets is the music. Done electronically, it does help give it a unique atmosphere, with the eerie themes used for the haunting activity, such as in the scene with the black swan, and it also gets across the feeling of an ongoing battle between good and evil, with the very beautiful, holy-sounding music you hear in scenes like when Peter and Annie go to the other side to get Martin, and during the exorcism, juxtaposed with insane church organ themes. And the music for the more intense scenes racks up the feeling of insanity that's going on, while the ending credits leaves you with a feeling of dread, confirmed when Martin is revealed to still be possessed (although the dread could also come down to the possibility of there being a direct sequel, which, thankfully, there isn't).

Beyond Darkness is far from one of the worst Italian horror films I've ever seen, but it's certainly not a superlative one, either. It does benefit from an appealing setting, particularly the house in which it takes place, some well done instances of atmosphere and eeriness, some passable performances by some of the actors, a memorable villain in Bette, genuinely spooky visuals, good physical effects and a great music score, but as a whole, it's an utter mess. It's burdened by another lame performance from Gene LeBrock, a convoluted, sloppily-written plot that's also overstuffed with allusions and ripoffs of other films, not nearly enough bloodletting as you would hope, a third act that feels like it should end several times before it does, and once it's over, it leaves you wonder what you just saw, and not in the way you want, as with other Italian horrors. Like Bruno Mattei, Claudio Fragasso is a cult figure due to his ineptness and the lunacy of his work, and if that's what you're looking for, this may float your boat; otherwise, don't bother.