Tuesday, September 4, 2018

Beyond The Door




Beyond The Door (Who Are You?, Chi Sei?, Devil With Her), Directed By Ovidio G. Assonitus (1974).

I’ve attempted to watch this Ovid Assonitus schlock fest repeatedly ever since I’ve seen the trailer on Mad Ron’s Prevues. But I always scratch my head, take a migraine pill and lie down. I never got what people saw in this movie that is until now.

According to Roger Ebert, who like always was confused and a little disturbed that the T.V. ads drew in the audiences who probably had their patented Howard K. Scott upchuck cups handy for the ensuing barf-a-rama.
I was pretty stoked to even see where they filmed certain scenes in San Francisco, having lived there previously for 10 years.  There’s gratuitous Golden Gate footage of course, Alcatraz (where I worked for a time) and also Safeway.

It begins in the same candle lit dimension as the Police video for “Wrapped around your finger”. A dark void with an altar that has a naked female who morphs into a Manson looking dude who still has a pretty sweet rack.
I got moobs


Satan’s voice tries to clear up some plot development but I was totally confused. The details involve Richard Johnson as Dimitri, who you may remember as “The Boat can leave now” guy from Zombi 2. Johnson returns from hell after dying in a car wreck to deliver what he promised to Satan. Or something, I mean the guy that wrote the fucking Visitor is responsible for this shit, I’m sure he gulped an entire bag of shrooms while chasing it down with an iced cappuccino!

The Media VHS version sucks compared to the Code Red one, just skip it, you’ll thank me later.
They don’t even play the extremely funky and catchy soundtrack by Franco Micalizzi and the big bubbling band! I’d like to say that I have fond memories of finding the Chi Sei? Score on vinyl at somewhere cool like Amoeba or Kim’s Video in its heyday, but no I just downloaded the score in the early aughts on a blog that used megaupload, pretty lame!

Kim Dotcom you suck!


Gabriele Lavia, the actor who plays the husband, looks like Dean Stockwell’s stunt double. He’s appeared in some Dario Argento films. That’s a good coincidence because the mom, played by Juliette Mills looks like Kirsten Dunst. Oh yeah and their son who practically carried the sequel on his tiny shoulders drinks from a Campbell soup can with a straw. None of this is in the Media VHS version by the way.

just packing my MAGA lunchbox.

 Ovidio really knows how to rip off the source material, I mean he’s made an entire career out of it. He produced Piranha 2, Tentacles (2 flicks that plagurize the Jaws franchise) and likes to claim he spawned James Cameron’s career (excuse the Spawning pun)! Then there’s The Visitor, which makes even less sense in unedited form that’s available on Shudder, (I’m glad I didn’t watch that for my review a few years ago).


In Beyond The Door, there’s no Ouiji board fooling around or incantations that bring on demonic possession or explanation as to why the mom gets all pustule and levitates but if you’re looking for coherence in an Ovidio helmed movie you need help!
Also not only is Jessica inhabited by evil spirits and swiveling her head around Linda Blair style but she’s pregnant—bonus!

TWINSEES


There’s some gratuitous pea soup in cans in various places around her two kids who are extremely obnoxious and dubbed. The way Jessica throws her vomit around and talks like Shirley Temple reminds me more of the Richard Pryor/ Laraine Newman Exorcist parody then the Friedkin original.

Blade Runner cosplay.

They must’ve gotten their porcelain dolls from the same road side dump in Tourist Trap because they come to life, start cackling and doing some scary ass telekinetic shit!
There’s one scene in the longer cut where these black dudes surround Juliet’s husband and one plays a flute with his nose!

street corner version of cross eyed mary played with a nostril.

Greg Goodsell mentioned how there’s a Pink Flamingos nod, so watch out for that. I’ve hated this film for years, so It’s kind of inspiring to see that the Code Red version (which is pretty cheap online) just randomly showed up on YT. It convinced me that even though this movie still is pretty bad and a shameless rip off, I still enjoyed it for its ridiculous audacity. I can only recommend it for people in the states where Rutles Indian tea is legal, if you know what I mean.  



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