Beyond the Door is considered one of those exploitation horror classics that was hard to find for a while there, but eventually came out in lurid VHS, then DVD, and now finally Blu Ray. Every incarnation has seen a better version of this controversial film, and this Blu should serve as the final word on a movie that has shocked and disturbed audiences for decades.
Jessica (Juliet Mills—sister of Hayley Mills and looking like the older sister of Kirstin Dunst) is very pregnant, and her baby is growing rapidly. This is an unexpected development, given she was on the pill and neither her nor her husband was looking to add to their already large family. Their son and daughter, both under ten, don’t seem to mind. In fact, they’re pretty excited. So is daddy Robert (Gabriele Lavia), until things start to turn weird. Jessica is acting funny, the baby is going through its cycles of growth abnormally fast, and strange, supernatural things are happening around the family. Along comes a mysterious stranger named Dimitri (Richard Johnson), with terrible news. It seems Jessica may be pregnant with the Devil’s child and she is being slowly possessed. That’s when all the real fun starts.
Let’s get the good stuff out of the way first. This movie is one of the strangest films I’ve ever seen. It opens with almost five minutes of voice overs, careening from characters talking without their lips moving to the inner dialogue of the characters with no differentiation. The young daughter of Jessica and Robert talks and acts like a nineteen-year-old hippy, not some pre-adolescent girl. The son is strange-looking and his bed sits under a giant painting of a can of Campbell’s Split Pea Soup (which is extra funny because Warner Brothers sued to have this film taken from theaters because it resembled The Exorcist too much). Everything in the setting is out of sync and jumbled, the entire story feeling like a nightmare from the jump. You never really ever get your footing in this one. Juliet Mills is excellent as the possessed mother and she really leans into the insanity. And when things get weird, they get weird, as this is one film that’s not afraid to Cross The Line. While all of this is a dream come true for exploitation fans and immeasurably satisfying, it takes far too long to reach the sweet spots. This movie could have been shorn of twenty minutes and been a much tighter, wilder affair. That’s quibbling, though, because once the pea soup starts to fly, you probably won’t care it took so long to get there.
A true classic and a very sick film, Beyond the Door is a must-see for any exploitation fan and for anyone who loves a good possession movie. A double feature with Abby would a great pairing and a fine way to spend an evening locked up at home.
Three Stars out of Four