The Beyond (1981)

Saw The Beyond (1981), an Italian horror film about a woman who inherits a hotel only to discover that this hotel is actually built on top of one of the seven entrances to hell.  Sometimes a gal just can't catch a break!

The film is interesting but a bit lumpy.  I enjoy haunted house films generally and I liked the malevolent, seductive way that the house welcomes the main characters deeper into creepy shit.  I liked the bizarre, futuristic morgue that bodies wind up at.  There's some nice strange, unusual creepiness to be had.  There's a theme of sight and vision throughout this film.  Few eyeballs make it through the film un-popped!

Some of the creepiness is more bewildering than creepy.  There's a blind girl, for example, who plays creepy music in an abandoned house who may be a ghost.  She's a sympathetic character and gives the protagonist many clues throughout the film, but there's no explanation of where she comes from.  Is she a ghost?  Is she homeless?  This ambiguity comes off as slightly clumsy, but I like the ambivalence of it - this is a world in chaos, falling apart.  Maybe a blind girl just slipped through the cracks?

Unfortunately, I could only find a dubbed version to watch online, so I had to put up with the main character's inconsistent southern accent and he film was made a while ago, so there's some unexpected shittiness from the main character's boyfriend (on first hearing of these infernal shenanigans, he scolds her to stop lying to him.  Dude, why?)  There's also a fairly inevitable zombie scene.  Zombies are completely boring to me now and I actively resent their presence in this otherwise original and quirky film.  I'm not even a zombie fan and I must have seen like 20 of those movies by now.  Enough!

So the film is not stellar, but it's very original and interesting.  The effects have aged a fair amount and for my viewing experience, the dubbing was the cause of much frustration, but the idea of a house with secrets appeals to me, and the sinister, magical effects are still fun to watch.  It was not great but interesting.