I remember renting
Beyond the Darkness (
Buio Omega, original Italian title) at the video store back in the eighties. It was in a big box and it was called
Buried Alive. I remember being both bored to death (after all, it was no Freddy or Jason) and at the same time, deeply disturbed. Let's see how it holds up thirty plus years since I first threw it in the old VCR....
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| This is the VHS that I remember renting back in the 1980s. There were many other versions. |
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| Catch Buried Alive after an Eddie Murphy double feature |
The story begins with Frank's girl, Anna, dead. Given that he's a slightly unbalanced recluse who lives in a remote mansion and plays with taxidermy... I think it's easy to guess where this is headed.
I should mention that Frank (
Kieran Canter) has awesome seventies hair. What other mad scientist has such magnificent feathered hair as this?
Frank attends Anna's funeral and stealthily injects her with his secret serum. All this to the tune of Goblin, who provides the background music. Somehow this group always managed to convey a feeling of nihilistic horror with just simple synthesizer-based tracks.
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| Frank digs up Anna |
Frank digs Anna up from the grave and brings her home in his creepy rape van. Like an idiot, he also picks up a hitchhiker named Jan.
Immediately, Frank gets to work, putting his taxidermy skills to good use. Step one: make sure Anna is completely naked.
You've got to hand it to actress
Cinzia Monreale, she plays a good cadaver. I'm sure if you were overly observant you'd catch her breathing, but I didn't see it, and I'd say she's a pretty convincing corpse.
She's also a trooper. A successful Italian runway model, it's amazing she agreed to spend almost the entirety of her role nude, dead, and forced to endure things shoved up her nose.
A fairly realistic gross-out scene, where Frank removes organs, suctions ooze through her nostrils, etc.
The stoner hitchhiker wakes up and finds Franky boy playing with Anna's cadaver. A melee ensues, resulting in said hitchhiker being chopped into pieces and dissolved in a bathtub full of acid.
Frank is assisted in his ghoulish endeavors by Iris (
Franca Stoppi). I'm not sure what her relationship is to Frank, but it's a strange relationship indeed. Suffice it to say, Frank suckles at her teat and gets complimentary handjobs from this maid (?).
Frank and Iris keep dead Anna in a bedroom upstairs. I don't know that I've ever seen necrophilia this blatant in film before. (And, no, I've never seen
Nekromatic, and have no plans to.)
Frank enjoys a brisk jog in the Italian countryside. There he meets an attractive jogger (
Anna Cardini) who has sprained her ankle. The perfect opportunity to lure her back to his place.
In a memorably horrific scene, Frank has sex with the jogger... in the same bed that holds Anna's corpse. Then, he rips her throat our with his teeth! This movie does not play around.
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| Lobby card featuring the scene where the jogger is disposed of |
Later, Frank heads to a disco and hooks up with a "disco girl" (as she's credited) played by the mega-fine
Simonetta Allodi.
The disco girl delivers some gratuitous nudity via a bath in Frank's nasty tub.
Disco Girl gets dressed, then Frank tells her to leave. Literally, the only reason
Simonetta Allodi is in this film is just to provide a full-frontal bath scene.
Frank is visited by Anna's sister Elena. Thankfully, this gives actress Cinzia Monreale at least a few scenes to be something other than a naked corpse.
It all comes to a head when Iris tries to kill Elena, but is stopped by Frank. It ends with a satisfying climax.
Beyond the Darkness rises above mediocre video nasty by going "all in" and really pushing the envelope of bad taste. Necrophilia, disembowelment, cannibalism, dismemberment,... you name the taboo, and this film's got it.
There are some scenes involving a police procedural, as a detective gathers clues against Frank, which are beyond boring. Otherwise, it's pretty much nonstop gore, nudity, and bottom-of-the-barrel bad taste. If that's your bag, this is for you.
★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 7/10
