After a doozy of an opening sequence where a priest, Father George (David Brandon) hears a death row confession from a child murdering, bald headed follower of an evil deity known as Ameth as she’s led away to the electric chair followed by the ghosts of her victims, we get into the monstrous meat and putrid potatoes of Beyond Darkness.
A priest, Peter (Gene LeBrock… the community theater Christopher Reeve with just a dash of Tom Cruise for funsies), and his family; wife Annie (Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan‘s Barbara Bingham), son Martin (that hospitality pissing mother fucker from Troll 2 himself, Michael Paul Stephenson), and their daughter Carole (Theresa Walker), a fart lovin’ girl that has a desire to dry her hair, but can’t remember the name of a hair dryer… you know what, Carole may have some sort of juvenile Alzheimer’s as she also can’t find her mouth in the dark… move into a house that anyone with an IQ above 5 would realize is completely, hopelessly haunted as all fuckity-do… thankfully for our viewing pleasure this family has nary a brain cell between them.
Meanwhile, George wanders the streets, down and out, but still pursuing that defunct inmate, Bette (Mary Coulson) by name, who is still among us causing deviltry… guess she picked the winning team in the old religion-choosing ball game!
After a series of events including, but not limited to, a coven randomly appearing in the house, poltergeist activity up the ass (not literally), and Martin getting sucked into another dimension via a fucking hole in the wall, the family remains rather calm about it all… I mean sign one of a ghost and I would’ve moved out in a fuckin’ New York second, but that’s me… and just sort of strides into the other dimension cool as fuckin’ cucumbers.
Will the fam have the stones to stand up to the supernatural shenanigans at hand, or will they cut their losses and throw that revoltin’ real estate back on the market?!!
Brought to you by Claudio Fragasso (the one and only baby), and his writing partner Rossella Drudi, Beyond Darkness is what would happen if you saw a marathon of The Exorcist, Poltergeist, and Hellraiser… but they were playing all at once… probably backwards… oh, and you just downed more mushrooms than exists in a game of Super Mario Bros., but you had the wherewithal to write down your impressions… and then you took those fever dream scribblings and shot a motion picture based on them with a non-English speaking director, and a non-Italian speaking cast.
If that paragraph doesn’t convince you to just throw your cash at Severin to obtain this putrid picture you are readin’ the wrong column my dude!
Perhaps a frightful fun fact is in order? Now, now… hold your thunderous nonexistent applause… I insist!
Want to know another name for this fright slick? Too bad, I’m telling your ass anyway! In Italy, the title of the film is La Casa 5… yup, that’s right, House 5… as in a sequel to the 1985 Steve Miner horror comedy House, right? Hell no! In Italy, Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead is La Casa (The House), so this is Evil Dead 5 mother fucker! Also, this film isn’t a sequel to jack and/or shit.
As for special features on this Blu-ray release we get interviews with Fragasso (in which he details the useless information I just wrote about up yonder… except I knew that info before I even got to the special features because I am in the house… a lot… and am a huge nerd… with an immense amount of time on my claws), Drudi, and Brandon, as well as the film’s trailer, and a soundtrack CD featuring the work of composer Carlo Maria Cordio.
Beyond Darkness is a batshit insane hodge-podge of elements from other films Frankensteined together with wild abandon. Don’t miss this one cats n’ creeps!
