It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Beyond Darkness is a b horror picture about a haunted house. It's Poltergeist meets The Exorcist.A reverend and his unsuspecting family move into a house with mysterious supernatural symptoms. Even more mysterious was why a married Protestant minister was a part of the Catholic Church, but these are details, just a minor technicality! The creepy ambient music was doled out with a heavy hand and it worked. The special effects were on point, and the tone was camp-free. The acting was what you would want to see in this type of story. The hag and the Catholic exorcist killed it. The minister and his wife, not so much. The writing didn't make a whole lot of sense. It could have used more development, such as the backstory about the property being built on the sight of a mass witch lynching. The opening scene more than made up for the gaps in the narrative logic. Beyond Darkness is nobody's classic, but it delivers.

From the director of "Troll 2" comes this moderately amusing haunted house / exorcism movie. Gene Lebrock ("Metamorphosis") stars as Father Peter, a reverend who moves with his family into a house of horrors. Not surprisingly, terrible things happened on the same grounds many years ago, and Father Peter must team up with the intense Father George (David Brandon) to take on the forces of evil and save his son Martin (who's played by Michael Stephenson, a.k.a. the young hero of "Troll 2").Flagrantly bad acting combines with director Claudio Fragassos' extravagant efforts to show the audience a good time. Fragasso gives this silly movie as much atmosphere as he possibly can, but the screenplay, which he wrote with Rossella Drudi, is pretty inane. The music score by Carlo Maria Cordio is over the top, which seems like an attempt to distract the audience from the fact that we're not seeing anything particularly interesting or unusual in this movie. The visual effects are variable, the makeup effects not that bad at all.The hunky Lebrock is very much a stiff, but "Friday the 13th" series fans might enjoy seeing actress Barbara Bingham (Mrs. Van Deusen in "Jason Takes Manhattan") in the role of his wife. Brandon does an awful lot of gnawing on the scenery. One person who likes like they're having fun is Mary Coulson, who plays the gnarly old crone Bette.One of the producers was an uncredited Joe D'Amato; the costume designer was Laura Gemser.Five out of 10.

There's a reason why this claims to be a part of a series it's not: no one would watch it otherwise!A collared priest enters a prison to give last rites to a middle aged female serial killer. Somehow she's stolen a number of stout children's souls, and the priest can see them. He's somehow affected by her evil holy book, which has a picture of Satan and a house in it that look much more recent than all the other pages. He turns into an alcoholic who staggers around town. Apparently he is possessed and also having a crisis of faith.Anyway, another collared priest moves into the house from the book because an older priest gave it to him for him and his family of four. There's a strange giant black swan rocker in the children's room they assume was a gift for the kids. One of the doors has a poorly- bricked and stuccoed wall behind it with a slit that glows. Obviously supernatural bad stuff starts happening soon, but the family for some reason stays. Turns out the older priest knew that the entire family would be in danger, but he thought it would be a good idea anyway for some reason.The movie is filled with terrible editing, terrible dialogue, and terrible plotting. The special effects aren't so good, mainly the house being full of smoke and red light as the cast has sweaty faces. There's a bunch of somewhat spooky zombie witches. A mixture of witches and innocent women had been burned at the stake on the site years ago. What the connection is to the serial killer is anyone's guess.It's a poor mix of The Amityville Horror (haunted house), The Exorcist (exorcists, possession and crisis of faith), and Poltergeist (child taken into other world, stuff flying around). Don't bother! Who would actually believe this as a sequel to Evil Dead?

This review contains some minor SPOILERS, so do not read it if you do not wish to have some points revealed to you. If you came across this title on this site and were like me, you were probably left scratching your head as to how `Beyond Darkness' could be subtitles `House 5.' This movie was made in 1990 and `House IV' was made in 1992. Well, it seems like someone just slapped the `House' label on to try and hide the fact that nothing else about it is interesting. This is nothing like the other `House' movies (though none of them are alike in any way either) and should not be thought of as part of the series. Instead, think of it as just another boring horror movie that you need to avoid. It was, after all, made by the same writer/director that brought us the universally panned `Troll 2.' To be fair, I believe that this movie has positive intentions. But good intentions do not necessarily make a good movie. The movie begins with a priest hoping to hear a woman about to be executed give her soul to God. This woman, who murdered a bunch of children in a house, is either possessed or is simply crazy. It is hard to make that out. She tries to tempt the priest by telling him to repent his religion to learn more about her evil Satanic ideas. He almost does it, and is thus haunted throughout the rest of the film by this guilt. When the woman is put in the electric chair, the priest sets out for the house in question faster than you can say "The Horror Show." Apparently, the house is on the site of some ancient place where witches were once burned at the stake. While he is on his way there, a second priest is moving into the house with his family, and he was given the house by the local head priest, who knows of the evil and deliberately sends the priest and his family there to stop the evil. Huh? Well, they move in and are visited by evil spirits faster than you can say "Amityville Horror." After the first few spooky happenings, one of which would really freak you out if it happened to you (but doesn't freak you out here), you would think the family would take the hint and get out of there faster than you can say "Poltergeist." But no. Then your conflict, when the ghost of the executed woman and her laughable spirit helpers kidnap the priest's son, would not exist. When the first priest arrives, the two holy men join forces and set about to rid the house of evil faster than you can say "The Exorcist." Yada yada yada.There's plenty more other than a standard plot that makes `Beyond Darkness' a lousy movie. First, the special effects are bad. I tend not to stress this sort of thing, but when a script calls for something that a budget just can't handle, it's time to either change the script or not do the movie at all. Most of the effects here are done in smoke-filled rooms to mask their low quality. This, however, just gets really bothersome. And boring. Another annoyance is the abundance of stereotypes. The entire family is so pious that you see right through their one-dimensional characters. And their acting of these stereotypes is really bad. Rarely do filmmakers find good child actors, and here they scraped the bottom of the desperation barrel. The boy playing the son is so horrid that you really hope the witch goes through with the sacrifice. But the worst thing about the film is how slow it all moves. Not once does the pace ever pick up, especially when the priests are battling the evil. I kid you not, I watched the scenes where the priests are walking through the house in fast forward and they were still moving like snails. Thus the only things that this movie has to offer are good intentions. I can get those from watching `House II,' which, unlike this movie, is fun to watch and in no need of renovation. Zantara's score: 2 out of 10.