there’s a point in every lucio fulci movie when you realize that it’s just not going to tie together. in the beyond, that moment comes when the ginger-kid displays blank-white eyeballs (no doubt a tribute to little orphan annie) at her father’s funeral. nope, it doesn’t make sense. ever.
in retrospect, this new orleans location-shot supernatural gore-fest is particularly relevant as the most coherent explanation yet for the hurricane katrina disaster: new orleans is home for one of the seven gates of hell. duh.
fulci outdoes himself with the gore in this one. special effect heads get destroyed in every conceivable manner: acid, spikes, hot wax (or something), face-splintering bullets, and eye-popping zombie fingers. there’s popping eyeballs galore! and all of it is filmed so that the actors, no matter their nationality, seem like they’re speaking in dubbed italian.
my coworker johnny motard told me that in every interview, the actors who have worked with fulci say that he’s a total sadist. remember the fulci movie i mentioned earlier, the gates of hell, which also incidentally involves the gates of hell being opened? apparently the scene where a girl vomits up her own guts was accomplished by making her swallow a large amount of guts and then vomiting them up. CGI is for sissies! fulci defended this "effect" by saying that they slaughtered the lamb on set, so the guts were perfectly fresh.
i also caught slither which is finally out on DVD. watch the extras for a full 60min of nathan fillion goofing off.
