The Beyond (, lit. "…And you will live in terror! The afterlife") is a 1981 Italian Southern Gothic supernatural horror film directed by Lucio Fulci, from an original story created by Dardano Sacchetti, and starring Catriona MacColl and David Warbeck. Its plot follows a woman who inherits a hotel in rural Louisiana that was once the site of a horrific murder, and which may be a gateway to hell. It is the second film in Fulci's Gates of Hell trilogy after City of the Living Dead (1980), and was followed by The House by the Cemetery (1981).
Filmed on location in and around New Orleans in late 1980 with assistance from the Louisiana Film Commission, additional photography took place at De Paolis Studios in Rome. Released theatrically in Italy in the spring of 1981, The Beyond did not see a North American release until late 1983 through Aquarius Releasing, who released an alternate version of the film titled 7 Doors of Death; this version featured an entirely different musical score and ran several minutes shorter than Fulci's original cut, and was branded a "video nasty" immediately upon its release in the United Kingdom. The original version of the film saw its first United States release in September 1998 through a distribution partnership between Rolling Thunder Pictures, Grindhouse Releasing, and Cowboy Booking International.
Following its release, reception of The Beyond was polarized. Contemporary and retrospective critics have praised the film for its surrealistic qualities, special effects, musical score and cinematography, but note its narrative inconsistencies; horror filmmakers and surrealists have interpreted these inconsistencies as intentionally disorienting, supplementing the atmospheric tone and direction. The Beyond is ranked among Fulci's most celebrated films, and has gained an international cult following over the ensuing decades.
Plot
In 1927, an artist and warlock named Schweick works on a hellish painting in Room 36 of the Seven Doors Hotel, in New Orleans, Louisiana. He protects one of the seven gates of hell, which if opened, will bring about the end of the world and the death of mankind. He is dragged from his room by a lynch mob to the hotel basement and killed for practicising black magic. As this happens, a white-eyed woman reads from the ancient tome "Eibon", prophesizing the opening of one of the seven gates of hell.
In 1981, Liza Merrill inherits the hotel and moves from New York City to refurbish and reopen it. Soon after she arrives, a worker glimpses a white-eyed woman through a window and falls off his scaffolding. Local doctor John McCabe is summoned and he takes the injured man to hospital. The bell for Room 36 rings, but as the hotel has yet to open, Liza dismisses it as malfunctioning. A plumber, Joe, arrives to investigate the lack of running water. In the flooded basement, he uncovers a bricked off area and accidentally opens the gate to hell. He is attacked by an unseen ghoul, blinded, and killed. The bodies of both Joe and Schweick are soon discovered by the hotel maid, Martha, and are taken to the local hospital morgue.
While driving to town, Liza encounters a blind woman named Emily and her guide dog, Dicky. Emily warns Liza that reopening the hotel would be a mistake and she should return to New York at once. At a bar in town, John urges Liza to give up on the hotel project but she refuses, explaining that it is her only remaining chance at financial success.
Later, Emily visits Liza at the hotel and tells her about Schweick and Room 36, warning Liza not to go up there. Upon examining Schweick's painting, Emily's hands begin to bleed, causing her to run with Dicky from the hotel in terror. Liza notices that neither of them made audible footsteps as they left. Despite Emily's warning, Liza enters Room 36 and discovers the Eibon, as well as Schweick's corpse nailed to the bathroom wall. She returns to Room 36 with John, but both the Eibon and the corpse are gone. Liza also tells John about her encounter with Emily but he is skeptical, insisting that there is no blind woman living in town. Furthermore, he says that the house where Liza claims Emily lives has been abandoned for years.