The Beyond

"Beyond death...Beyond Evil...Beyond the dreaded gates of hell."

1981 1h 28m IT

👍

6.9

SOLID

★6.9TMDB · 694

Horror

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

New Yorker Liza Merril inherits an old hotel in Louisiana and invests her savings to reopen the place, unaware that the hotel houses the body of a dead painter murdered decades earlier, and that the location is about to become a gateway to Hell.

“Beyond death...Beyond Evil...Beyond the dreaded gates of hell.”

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Cast

Catriona MacColl
Liza Merril
David Warbeck
John McCabe
Cinzia Monreale
Emily
Antoine Saint-John
Schweick
Veronica Lazăr
Martha
Larry Ray
Larry
Al Cliver
Dr. Harris
Michele Mirabella
Martin Avery

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Lucio Fulci
Writers: Dardano Sacchetti, Giorgio Mariuzzo, Lucio Fulci
Languages: Italian
Countries: Italy

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

RUNTIME

Did you know

88 minutes exactly — the "classic feature" runtime most directors aim for.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Shot for just $0.4M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Earned back only 31% of its budget on initial theatrical — a commercial disappointment on release.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

ERA

Did you know

45 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Lucio Fulci, shot by Sergio Salvati. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Fabio Frizzi. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Vincenzo Tomassi shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Catriona MacColl and David Warbeck and Cinzia Monreale carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Lucio Fulci directs. Sergio Salvati behind the camera. Fabio Frizzi scores. Vincenzo Tomassi cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. A commercial under-performer on release. Produced in Italy. Dialogue in Italian.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

188 minutes exactly — the "classic feature" runtime most directors aim for.
2Shot for just $0.4M — micro-budget by Hollywood standards.
3Earned back only 31% of its budget on initial theatrical — a commercial disappointment on release.
445 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
5Directed by Lucio Fulci, shot by Sergio Salvati. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
6Original score by Fabio Frizzi. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
7Editor Vincenzo Tomassi shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
8Catriona MacColl and David Warbeck and Cinzia Monreale carry the top of the cast.
9Marketing tagline: "Beyond death...Beyond Evil...Beyond the dreaded gates of hell.".
10IMDB entry: tt0082307 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
11Classified under 20 themes, including "hotel", "experiment", "new orleans, louisiana", "hell".
12Released under 28 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Sergio Salvati
Original score: Fabio Frizzi
Editing: Vincenzo Tomassi
Production design: Massimo Lentini
Makeup / hair: Giannetto De Rossi
Stunt coordinator: Nazzareno Cardinali
Runtime: 88 min · 1h 28m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $400,000
Box office: $123,843
Return: 31% of budget
Original language: IT
Certification (US): NR
IMDB: The Beyond (1981)

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Lucio Fulci

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What people are saying

Wuchak2026-05-08
★ 5/10
A New York woman inherits a cursed house outside of New Orleans This is southern gothic horror and the second in Lucio Fulci’s unofficial ‘gateways to hell’ trilogy, which all center around a portal to the underworld and include actress Catriona MacColl in three different roles (credited as Katherine MacColl). The first film was “City of the Living Dead” from the year prior, and the third one is “The House by the Cemetery,” which came out later the same year. They’re all self-contained. The gateway to hell in the basement element was ripped off from “The Amityville Horror” from two years earlier and “The Beyond” doesn’t hold up by comparison. “The Amityville Horror” was a huge hit for good reason. It took the time to develop several characters, and I don’t mean just the family members. Moreover, it has a warm heart and there’s light underneath the darkness. This one’s more surreal and uglier, naturally similar to Fulci’s previous “Zombie” and the aforementioned “City of the Living Dead.” His curious trademark of punctured eye sockets is on full display. Catriona MacColl has a face that’s easy on the eyes, but don’t expect anything more on the beauty front. In the masculine department, David Warbeck costars as the doctor or mortician. He brings to mind Roger Moore in the ’70s and was actually considered for the role of 007 before Moore took it. Even then, he signed a hush-hush contract to replace Roger at a moment’s notice if he quit or proved troublesome. I liked the artistic rural creepiness reminiscent of “The Shuttered Room” but, again, it suffers by comparison. Twenty-four years later “The Skeleton Key” took the same milieu, minus the portal to hell, and made a better film. Don’t get me wrong, there are some highlights in this flick, which make it worthwhile to fans of southern gothic horror, not to mention devotees of Fulci, many of whom tend to gush over it. It runs 1h 27m and shot from Oct-Dec 1980 in New Orleans and north of there, across Lake Pontchartrain in Madisonville, which is where the old boarding house is located. The causeway happens to be the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, which is the longest continuous bridge over water in the world (24 miles). Studio stuff was done in Rome. GRADE: C

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