The Beyond

 


The Beyond (1981)

The Plot: a woman inherits a hotel in Louisiana that just so happens to host one of the cursed 7 gateways to hell.

Liza, our protagonist in The Beyond gets both good news and bad news one day. The good news: She inherited a hotel. The bad news: it has one of the cursed 7 gateways to hell in it. This would seemingly be also bad in general for someone in the hospitality business. First off, the hellishness of the place would guarantee the hotel never achieving 5 star status. I am sure some thrill seeking extreme sports junkies would book a room there for the sheer thrill of living so close to one of the 7 cursed gateways to hell, but the average family of four looking for good accommodations as they drive from New Mexico to Florida for their annual Disneyland trip are going to expect less gateways to hell. They already have spent all day with 2 kids cooped up in a car with the older brother saying "I'm not touching you!"  and coming as close to touching his little sister as possible. That's enough hell for one day, Thankyouverymuch. 

Beware of a blind woman and her service dog just chillin' in the middle of the road

As a matter of fact, I kind of expected the gateway to hell to be more hellish honestly. At first, it only does things like kill the contractors. Weee! there goes a painter off a tall ladder! Bam! the plumber is killed by a demon! Certainly, this will up the cost of renovations and possibly make finding replacement contractors to take the job much harder as I am sure they will start telling each other to stay away from the hell house. Eventually spiders are released and we ultimately progress to zombies. 

Don't shoot until you see the whites of  their eyes

Eventually Liza gets help from her skeptical friend John but soon a hospital filled with zombies ends his skepticism. Can't says I blame him. The movie ends with John and Liza blinded in hell. The second movie from 1981 to feature a glimpse of hell (along with Disney's the Black Hole). Moral of the story: Don't try to renovate a building with a cursed gateway to hell. You're better off leveling it for a parking lot instead. 

An all expenses paid trip...to hell!

The Beyond is a slow burn, there are certainly many gory deaths and such and it is a fever dream of a nightmare, but it seems a bit disjointed to me. I give the Beyond 4 cursed gateways to hell. 



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