THE BEYOND
D: Lucio Fulci; with Katherine MacColl, David Warbeck, Sarah Keller, Antoine
Saintjohn.
Toei Video
A masterpiece of surreal Grand Guignol, The Beyond is Italian
horror director Lucio Fulci’s grandest achievement – a nightmarish fever dream
of hypnotic violence and illogical imagery that, while certainly not for the
faint of heart, should more than hit the spot for hard-core horror fanatics.
The slapdash plot is somewhat similar to Michael Winner’s The Sentinel,
with this film’s concept of a hotel (an apartment building in Winner’s picture)
built on one of the seven gateways leading to hell. Admittedly, Fulci shows no
shame in lifting shocks outright from Dario Argento’s Suspiria, as well
as countless other Italian zombie movies but, somehow, The Beyond seems
incomparable to any of these other pictures. Perhaps it’s the way in which
Fulci stages the violent set pieces with such perverse conviction, or it could
be the way in which the movie allows reality to slowly erode away, replaced
instead by a world where nothing makes any sense, and literally anything can
happen at any given time, with nary an explanation. Fulci was quoted as saying:
“With The Beyond, my goal was to make an absolute film…. It’s a
plotless film, there’s no logic to it, just a succession of images.” And this
succession of images is anything but pretty as demonic little girls and zombies
are blown away with reckless abandon, armies of spiders emerge from out of
nowhere to slowly tear a paralyzed man to shreds, and what must be some of the
most shocking eyeball abuse committed to film since Luis Bu�uel’s
surrealistic Un Chien Andalou (or at least since Fulci’s own
Zombie). In this area, Fulci is assisted greatly by bravura makeup
artist Gianetto De Rossi, who manages to realize Fulci’s grisly visions with
next to no funds on hand. Also worth mentioning is the superb, moody
photography of Sergio Salvati and the gloriously operatic score by Fabrio
Frizzi, both of whom have served as frequent collaborators on many of Fulci’s
better films. For most folks, The Beyond will most likely be of little
interest, but for those horror fans looking for something a little less
unpredictable, and with a little more bite than our own watered-down stateside
efforts, this delirious gem of spaghetti splatter should more than fit the
bill. Watch out for the re-cut, re-scored, re-titled version known as Seven
Doors of Death, which should be avoided at all costs. The Beyond can
be found at Vulcan Video.
– Joey O’Bryan EARTHQUAKE
ABC News Interactive
CD-ROM, Windows
I must admit that like most, I find it difficult to keep from
investigating accidents I drive past, and that footage of car wrecks,
tornadoes, and buildings being demolished pique my attention too. Who would
have thought to put together a collection providing interactive multimedia for
rubberneckers? Well, ABC News has sifted through its archives to dig up all the
gruesome videos and photographs showing the devastation of earthquakes
throughout the world over the past century, and has combined it with maps and
text in a well-organized and easily accessible CD-ROM format. In addition to
highlighting the five worst quakes in the last decade, categories also include
information on some 25 additional incidents that are highlighted with news
footage, preventative measures, and scientific explanations. In the “Preparing
for an Earthquake” section, you, too, can learn the “duck, cover, and hold”
drill that the West Coast kids ritually practice, or how to stabilize your
house in the event that the North American continental plate decides to
spontaneously separate right through Texas. “Understanding Earthquakes” is
equally unrevealing. Most of the information in this section is in the form of
“shake tables,” which are very simplistic models of how your house would react
if it were made of building blocks as opposed to Legos – can you guess which
model remains erect? Before you skulk out to get this product to view toppling
buildings and shifting ground, be warned that most of the footage is simply
talking heads giving statistics on monetary damage and body counts. Either
people don’t have enough time to pull out their camcorders in the 10 or so
seconds that a quake actually lasts, or they’re worried about other things,
because I only managed to find one clip of an actual earthquake, which was from
a 1933 Universal newsreel showing a man dashing past a building as its face
came tumbling down. Although Earthquake falls short of satisfying one’s
morbid curiosity, educationally speaking, it attests to how disgustingly
sensationalistic the media can be. It also reinforces my belief that you’ve got
to be crazy to live in California.
– Carl Bacher CHAN IS MISSING
D: Wayne Wang; with Wood Moy, Mark Hayashi, Laureen Chew, Peter Wang.
New Yoker Video
An extremely witty look into daily life in Chinatown, Chan Is
Missing is truly one from the heart – written, acted, and directed with a
sincerity that’s hard to come by. Then-first-time director Wayne Wang, probably
best known for The Joy Luck Club and the recent Smoke, delivers
the kind of film that just seems alive. His characters live and breathe
as real people do, and you get the feeling they go on living even after our
privileged glance into their lives. The story follows the efforts of Jo, a cab
driver turned amateur detective, as he attempts to track down the elusive Chan
Hung, a friend whose disappearance may or may not have something to do with a
politically motivated shooting that took place during a local New Year’s
parade. From the obsessed cab driver who spurs the tale, to the chef who sings
“Fly Me to the Moon” while cooking in his Samurai Night Fever T-Shirt,
everyone in Chan Is Missing feels remarkably well-developed, from the
main players on down to the most minor of characters. But if the characters are
what gives the picture its heart and soul, it is Wang’s complex dissection of
the Chinatown lifestyle that gives it substance. “Hey, just what kind of
Chinese are you anyway?” a character asks near the beginning of the movie, and
in Chan Is Missing it’s perhaps the most important of all questions.
Characters constantly argue about the differences, faults, and merits between
Taiwanese Chinese, Mainland Chinese, American-Born Chinese (more commonly known
as “ABCs”), PRC Chinese, etc. Whether it’s a scene where people fight over what
flag to wave in the New Year’s parade or an exchange about how the intricacies
of language can get an innocent man in trouble with the cops, Wang’s vision of
Chinatown is one of subtle tension between varying cultures. With this in mind,
Jo’s search for Chan Hung, a mysterious man about whom very little is known,
becomes a search for identity. In the end, Wang uses Chan’s disappearance to
illustrate the isolation that Chinese must feel both from mainstream American
society as well as from each other – as immigrants in America. Chan Is
Missing is a wonderful, occasionally hilarious movie, served up with great
style and resonance.
– Joey O’Bryan
This article appears in October 6 • 1995 and October 6 • 1995 (Cover).