There are quite a lot of names synonymous with old school Italian Horror and Exploitation. Fulci, Bava, Deodato, to name a few. Depending on your taste, and how ghoulish you might be, you probably favor one over all others. I appreciate many movies from all who contributed to this era. But I've got to admit, I've always been on the D'Amato bandwagon. One of his films in particular made an impression on me at an early age. At around 13 I rented a movie most know as Beyond The Darkness. However, the Blockbuster copy was titled Buried Alive. A version of the film which I've always heard was R-rated, having certain things cut out. Not so. just a different tile, as it would turn out. Originally titled Buio Omega. Regardless of your taste in Italian cinema, and regardless of what title you saw this film under, I like to think we're all in agreement that this is one sick movie. And to this day, the only movie to make me queasy.
Like many of these twisted (and sometimes ridiculous) epics, Beyond The Darkness also relies on the success of American films for inspiration. Nothing wrong with that, really. I've never heard anyone say they didn't like one of these because it was too similar to some other movie they liked. This one, however, is an obvious one. Not too terribly similar to Psycho, but pretty similar. There's no hiding from it. Nobody dresses up like mother. Nobody in this movie is THAt insane. Just insane enough to do some really bad things to some random people for no reason other than to deal with the grief from the loss a loved one, and the stress of having their corpse around 24/7. I'm getting a little ahead of myself. Let me start from the beginning.We don't know Frank very well. Nor do we ever get to. Frank is a rich guy who inherited his estate from his parents, years ago. Seemingly, a happy, healthy young man with plenty of happiness and stability in his future. Or at least he should be. His fiancée, Anna, is deathly ill, and near the end. We get the idea this is due to Voodoo brought on by the maid, who we later learn is in love with Frank, and with the idea of being mistress of the house. In what was a rather sad moment, Anna passes right as Frank is about to stick it to her one last time. Not to imply that trying it again is completely out of the question just because she's dead.
Seemingly only grief-stricken, we later get the idea Frank's sanity has shattered along with this heart. Late one night, after Anna is buried, Frank takes his van down to the graveyard, and digs up the love of his life, and takes her back home where she belongs. But not without complications. On the way, Frank gets a flat tire, only to have a portly, potheaded hitchhiker forced upon him. Frank puts almost no effort into kicking her out of the van, which makes little sense, considering what he has in the back. Pothead chick passes out in the van, and I guess Frank didn't want to disturb her, because he just literally went about his business once he got home, and simply left her in there to sleep it off. And by "business", I mean taking Anna's corpse into his taxidermy room and ripping out all of her innards and stuffing her. Plucking out her eyes and replacing them with glass ones. The whole nine yards. Overwhelmed by it all, Frank gets a little carried away and takes a big bite out of her heart. By far the most disturbing scene in the movie. Frank has lost it, and figures that if he can't have the life with Anna that he wanted, he can at least preserve her shell, and just gaze at it, and obsess over what could have been for the rest of his life. But what about the pothead chick?
Pothead chick wakes up from her pot-coma and wanders on in there as this whole thing is wrapping up, and gets killed for it, of course. But not before getting her fingernails randomly ripped out. Ok. So, things just got a little more complicated. This is where the maid comes in handy. Iris is more than willing to help out her Frank, and quickly chops up pothead chick's surprisingly not so bad looking naked corpse and throws it, piece by piece, into a bathtub of acid. Problem solved. And just to show Frank what a good sport she is, she doesn't give him a hard time over the corpse. Although, she's probably smart enough to not try his patience at this point. At least anything concerning Anna. However, there's this one scene. Strangely, the scene that made me the most queasy during my original viewing. I'm still not sure what this crazy bitch was shoveling in her mouth, but it was beyond nasty. Frank vomits, and Iris seems amused as she asks if the heat is getting to him. I don't think it was until that very minute.
Besides what was already mentioned, there was really one other scene involving extreme gore and cruelty. This one, being almost equally effective. Frank meets a young woman while jogging, who just happened to sprain her ankle. Frank takes her back to his pad, seemingly with the intention of getting some ass, but Frank intends on living dangerously, today, as he tries sticking it to the young woman in the bed, right beside his girlfriend's corpse. Even going so far as to lift up the sheet, so he can get a peek at her, which I'm assuming was meant to get him in the mood. Of course, Frank is caught, and the freaked out chick gets a chunk of her throat bitten out before she can make too big of a ruckus. As usual, Iris is ready and willing to help out, quickly shoving the body in the incinerator. A body that they then notice isn't even dead yet. Watching it burn with indifference, falling further into insanity. Not so much Iris. I think her deal is that she's just a horrible person. She convinces Frank to marry her in exchange for staying off his case about Anna's corpse. This agreement, however, doesn't last, which is when things get nasty, and where it all inevitably falls apart.
So, yeah. Not exactly a Psycho ripoff, but it's there. Frank doesn't have Norman's heart or his ability to make us sympathize, much like the story in this movie doesn't have a fraction of Psycho's depth. The only thing, in my opinion, stopping Beyond The Darkness from being the masterpiece it could have ended up being. But quality be damned. This one is all about the shock value. But it was more than the disturbing gore and Iris' lack of table manners that bothered the 13 year old me. It was the whole tone of the movie. The complete and utter darkness of the story, and the hopelessness of it all, tied together nicely by a menacing/haunting score by the now legendary Goblin.A really bleak one, here. It just made me plain uncomfortable at the time. There's not a lot to the story, and the disturbing content is few and far between, but Beyond The Darkness, if nothing else, is genuinely effective. I just wish I had seen more equally effective Horrors in my more vulnerable years. But as I continue my thankless quest to be shocked by the horror genre, all the August Undergrounds and Slaughtered Vomit Dolls in the world can't compete with my warm and fuzzy memories of this sleazy Italian shocker. 7/10
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