hyped garbage

best movie i've ever seen.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

How can a film be scary and funny at the same time? I don't know, but that's what Beyond the Door manages to be. It's an Exorcist rip-off with a bit of Rosemary's baby thrown in for good measure, filtered through some Italian film companies' shattered brain pan. Best example of this is the very beginning of the film, which Satan narrates himself while we watch a writhing naked woman on a plinth, whose face then turns into Jesus. A Jesus with boobs.Jessica lives in San Francisco with her husband Robert and their two kids, Gail (who talks like a hippy and sounds ten years older than she looks) and Ken (who is about five and swears like a trooper!). Jessica is once again pregnant, and therefore exhibits the usual symptoms of what we used to called Irish Toothache: nausea, eating weird things, in this case a rotten banana off the street, extreme mood swings, murdering a bunch of gold fish, blaming her husband for every single wrong in the world, slapping her kids about.Vomiting blood isn't the best indication that the pregnancy is going well, and even stranger is that the pregnancy is progressing at an alarming rate. Jessica is concerned and wants to have an abortion as the pregnancy is now causing her to float about the room and leave mud everywhere (don't think about it). When the doctor agrees to the abortion, she goes mental and insists that the baby be born! Women, eh?I burst out laughing when the kids started begging with their father not to leave them alone with their mother, but then the film did a strange thing by becoming effective and creepy. When the kid brother is alone he starts talking to an invisible thing sitting in a rocking chair, his sister arrives, going on about something or other and totally oblivious to the fact that every doll in the room has turned to stare at her. What's harder to ignore is the room going completely mental, the dolls walking about, and a cake floating up to the ceiling and getting squashed.The kids are shipped off somewhere and the strange fellow turns out to be Jessica's ex-boyfriend Richard Johnson, who didn't fare to well with the occult way back in The Witch In Love either. He wants the baby to be born and insists he help, whereas the doctor thinks it's probably for the best if the demon spawn of hell be removed. It's like the worst abortion debate in the world, all set to the soundtrack of a woman vomiting, cussing and flying about the room. I've been looking forward to this film for some time and wasn't disappointed. I thought the really daft period of Italian horror started later in the decade, but here it is, a fully fledged trash classic that ticks all the boxes you need. Or I need, anyway.

I don't know what the hell is in people's heads giving this such a low rating. I am a horror movie fanatic, and I remember seeing the trailer for this movie as an 8 or 9 year old kid in the movie theater. I can still remember seeing the lead character vertically floating away from her bed and the subsequent nightmares I had because of that one scene. I did not see the movie itself until 2012, and it scared me as a 47 year old grown ass man! Here's why: if you know and love horror like I do (46 years and counting), everything does not have to be bells and whistles and what will appeal to the masses, such as in The Exorcist. Silence is golden in some instances, and there are plenty of moments in this underrated gem in which said silence speaks volumes. That silence, with seemingly nothing going on, gives the viewer the opportunity to THINK; to think about what has transpired (or about to transpire) and let the horror of that moment sink in. The background sound effects (and at times lack thereof) was truly horrific. One does not need to SEE anything at these particular moments because these moments were intentionally DESIGNED TO MAKE YOU FEEL AND ABSORB THE HORROR OF THE MOMENT. Consider this if you will-what's worse, seeing something happen in a flash and having an immediate reaction. or thinking, unhurriedly, about what has happened, what is about to happen, and WHY IT IS HAPPENING. To me, that is a far more horrific endeavor. The further we get away from the 70's the more spoiled people have become to seeing reactionary, formulaic horror movies that don't even give you chance to catch your breath for all the action and filler. Sure, they have a setting and a premise (some of them), but most don't have that atmosphere (and superb acting, for that matter) that they did in those days. Back then, these movies were a form of art with serious actors WANTING TO DO THE BEST JOB THEY COULD BECAUSE IT WAS IMPORTANT; THEY TOOK THEIR CRAFT (acting) SERIOUSLY. Today is representative of a bunch of spoiled, self-righteous "actors" who could care less about the craft of fine acting, for the most part. Why do you think the U.S. has done so many remakes of Asian horror movies? Because Asian horror movies have an abundance of what American-made horror movies lack and take for granted...ATMOSPHERE!

Jessica Barrett (Juliet Mills) is happily married to Robert (Gabriele Lavia) and has two "lovable" kids. All of the sudden she realizes she's pregnant--but has been always taking her birth control pills. The baby grows quickly and she starts acting strangely. Then her former boyfriend devil worshipper Dimitri (Richard Johnson) shows up. Could he have something to do with it?This was a HUGE hit in 1974 but I can't see why. It has its moments but the story makes little sense, there are countless sequences of people walking around San Francisco and there's a little girl who has a mouth on her that would make a construction worker blush! To make matters worse everyone is badly dubbed (with the exception of Mills and Johnson)! Also the music score is terrible. It sounds like bad jazz and destroys any mood the movie might have had. On the plus side Mills is VERY good in her role; there is a neat scene where the kids bedroom is attacked; the makeup and special effects are pretty good; there are some truly scary sequences which use just sound effects and there is some impressive directorial touches. So it HAS its moments but ultimately it's too boring and slow-moving to really work. This is based on the Code Red DVD which has a pristine transfer and a full uncut version. Amateur night in hell.

~Spoiler~Beyond the Door (a.k.a. The Devil Within Her) has been called The Italian Exorcist, and for good reason. For that's exactly what it is...with just a pinch of Rosemary's Baby for good measure. Jessica and Robert Barrett are about to have their third child. But this blessing may be a curse in disguise as Jessica's ex-boyfriend, Dmitri, shows up. Dmitri is played by Richard Johnson, who can be seen in other Italian fare including Zombi 2 and Screamers. Seems his character has made a "bargain with the devil" (as the film's theme song informs us) to extend his life in exchange for a vessel to host the devil. Before you can say "pea-soup", the pregnancy turns Jessica into a possessed woman who levitates and spins her head in a 360 degree manner. It's a blatant rip-off and Warner Brothers wasted no time sending their army of lawyers in. That didn't stop the film from becoming a moderate success, although I can't figure out why. The best feature of the film has got to be the dubbing of the children. It's painfully obvious someone much older is dubbing these kids and the things they get to say are mindblowingly funny. Other than that, I'm sad to report that the film is largely boring. I've been looking forward to seeing this one for many years (as I do with most of Code Red's DVD releases) and it was not worth the wait. But what did I really expect from Ovidio G. Assonitis, director of Piranha II: The Spawning? Not much happens in the film and the only memorable bits can be seen in The Exorcist. Also, the way the film is edited it repeats many scenes in brief flashes that seem to serve no purpose. I really can't recommend this to anyone but hardcore Italian buffs. However, if you make it to the end, if you can bear it, you will be privy to one of the best head-scratching moments of Italian cinema. I don't want to spoil anything, but it certainly had me laughing hysterically. Beyond the Door was followed by two sequels, neither of which have anything to do with this film nor each other.