Blue Holocaust

D'Amato's adherence to all things vile and sleazy sometimes produces rubbish. In the case of BEYOND THE DARKNESS, he's delivered something great.

The theme is necrophilia and obsession. A man obsesses over his recently deceased girlfriend and beds her in his country house. Sexual intrigue with his maid livens proceedings and a sequence in which a hitchhiker has her fingernails removed is the one to write home about.

I'm not reluctant to say it: I love stuff like this when it's relentless, made without guilt, and moves at a quick clip.

The Goblin soundtrack feels just right and the special make-up effects are more than adequate.

D'Amato achieves a vile, putrid, rotten atmosphere with this gem, and you can't fault the guy for that, can you?

Murder, mayhem and mutilation…shown in all its pride and glory! Buio Omega a.k.a Buried Alive a.k.a Beyond the Darkness is a finger-licking and ultra-gory sleazefest. D'Amato's film certainly is a landmark in the Italian shlock/sick cinema as it contains some of the grossest and explicit nauseating sequences ever shot on film. The young and introvert Frank cannot live without his recently deceased girlfriend Anna, so he digs up her corpse, embalms her and keeps her around his mansion. After this, he descents further into madness and starts to kill girls randomly and his freaky housekeeper Iris assists him. Now, Frank is pretty messed up in the head but Iris is just downright insane!! She makes a hobby out of dismembering dead bodies and she breastfeeds the 22-year-old Frank! The first half hour may seem a little lame and low on bloodshed but, as soon as the gore kicks in, it doesn't stop till the end credits role and it becomes more and more repulsive by the minute! D'Amato servers a disturbingly realistic embalming-process along with some detailed torturing scenes, dissections and gruesome butchering! Of course, like it should in Italian's nastiest, there are a lot of perversely orientated undertones present such as necrophilia, cannibalism and even a variant on the ‘Oedipus'-theme!

Joe d'Amato never was world's most brilliant director. That's okay, since he never claimed to be and he always clearly mentioned his influences. He's more like a businessman with more adult films on his repertoire…The horror films he made are vicious but technically weak, all together! Nonetheless, Buio Omega is an exception! Unlike his other horror films, Buried Alive has tension, a great soundtrack, a constant morbid atmosphere and even a bit of surprisingly good acting! Cinzia Monreale, who plays the dead love-interest Anna, became more famous after starring in Fulci's masterpiece the Beyond and the creepy aunt Iris also starred in a few delightful `babes behind bars' flicks. The circle of fans that likes this kind of films is rather small…but they're very devoted. For them, Buio Omega is a must see!

Joe D'Amato is regarded as a rather greedy hack by most people acquainted with horror. Now that's not too far from the truth. But before D'Amato started cranking out movies with an inverse relation between quantity and quality, he made this startling horror movie. Startling in the sense that it's actually GOOD!

Don't get me wrong. Just because it's good doesn't mean it's not exploitation. It has truly gory scenes such as a taxidermy which doesn't leave much to the imagination, nails being ripped off, some implied necrophilia and a particular scene of a "stew" being munched on with an extreme close-up which made my stomach do a somersault. Well done Joe for that! However, these gore scenes are spread out and in between them, there is some attempt to build suspense. There is some good acting particularly by the very creepy but oddly sexy Franca Stoppi(RIP) who plays the caretaker from hell, Iris. The cinematography (by Joe himself) is gorgeous in spite of all the carnage around. It doesn't seem like a cheap B-movie. The music by Goblin is as expected, superb.

That said, the movie is not perfect. It stagnates from time to time. There is absolutely no humour (except some unintentional stuff but you will be too busy gagging to notice) to lighten the relentlessly downbeat tone. Also, the lead actor can be too over-the-top sometimes.

That said, I am shocked that this is a film by Joe D'Amato. It would seem he actually had talent. It's tragic that he was so caught up in making money that he didn't fulfill it. The horror aficionado missed out on a few more quality horror movies.

BEYOND THE DARKNESS is the tender tale of a young man in love. So much so, that not even his beloved's demise can stand in his way.

THIS MOVIE CONTAINS: Graverobbing, cannibalism, extreme taxidermy, disembowelment, mutilation, immolation, and ubiquitous nudity.

With this film, Director Joe D'Amato has made the perfect companion film for his gushy opus, ANTHROPOPHAGUS. Gorehounds will be in ecstasy, while casual viewers may want to keep those barf bags handy...

Beyond the Darkness (or Buio Omega) might be low on plot and complex characters, but the gore quotient is off the charts and some of the effects will churn the stomachs of even the most hardcore horror fans. If they were passing out medals for that, it would win hands down. While the script isn't the best, there's an engrossing "car crash" quality to the film that keeps you invested.