Originally, I had planned to watch my new Blu-Ray of The Adventure of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension, but in the end I decided I wanted a fresh cinematic experience rather than the comfortable pleasure of re-watching an old favorite. Following some comments from the Cinema Junkiepodcast, I discovered that Shudderhas The Beyondavailable for streaming and so Italian Horror won out.

Part of Lucio Fulci’s ‘Gates of Hell’ trilogy, preceded by City of the Living Dead(which I have seen) and followed by The House by the Cemetery(which I have not), The Beyondfollows the story of Liza (Catriona MacColl) and young woman from New York who has inherited a closed hotel in Louisiana. Having run out of financial options in Liza is committed to reopening the hotel and making it work. Accidents during renovations start injuring workers bringing in a local doctor (David Warbeck) and the two are drawn into the hotel’s history of murder, sorcery, and attack by the undead.

The Enlightened let loose upon humanity that concept that the world is ultimately a rational place and can be understood by way of the powers of reason. This concept is so ingrained in the Western culture that it permeates even our supernatural stories with explanations for who ghost, demons, and all assortment of otherworldly events transpires. This usually provides for horror stories a roadmap based on mystery. Once the character discover the clues and assemble them in the proper manner not only an explanation but a solution to the horrific emerge. Methods for closing gates, laying souls to rest, or even just understanding and surviving in the new conditions follow by the power of reason.

This is not how The Beyondis structured.

The Beyondtakes its structure from dream-logic.

That is to say there is no logic, there is no cause-and-effect chain of events, but rather the story is a sequence of events, each building in horrific intensity, each less moored to conventional reality, until at the end of the movie, staircases connect disparate locales, reason falls away leaving only madness.

As such The Beyondis a movie that some will adore for it unconventional narrative and others will find only frustration as ultimately nothing is explained and the chaos reigns. I actually fall in the middle; I found the structure interesting enough to watch the entire feature but the lack of a cohesive narrative ultimate robbed me of any emotional investment with the characters and their plight. I will also state that the tarantula sequence, while inventive, dragged on far too long. The Beyondis from that branch of horror cinema that features graphic, gory, and gruesome death scenes, another aspect that does not work for everyone.

In the end I do not regret spending my Sunday Night Movie slot on this horror film but your mileage may vary.