Voix d'outre-tombe

Rest in peace, oh no, not this sorely departed soul. He wants his conniving killer revealed with the help of his innocent daughter. One of his last directorial efforts, Lucio Fulci presents something peculiar, and very patchy. You wouldn't think you're watching a made-for-TV presentation though. While not packed with violence, there's still a persistent mean-streak with Fulci's signature style. Explicit brutality towards a child, squashed eyeballs in a soup, mausoleum zombies (in a dream), topless nudity and flashes of a rotting, oozing corpse covered in flies and maggots. A TV-movie you say? Even with those nightmarish details, Fulci's vision is restrained, but there's something rather expressive and personal in his canvas of work.

The histrionic story is a hazy murder mystery without the mystery build-up, filled with lingering suspicions, sordid family secrets and the afterlife (presented by an echoing voice-over) getting involved through the use of allusive slow-mo dream sequences caused by either guilt or grief, depending on the character, to communicate or torment. Those prolonged dreams, and sometimes nightmares were striking and strange, along with the flashbacks, but without them there wouldn't be any thrills/intrigue/exposition/shocks - just melodramatic tropes and cold stares. While the narrative hardly comes out of first gear, its slow nature gives off a hallucinogenic vibe with the screen being soaked in moody imagery, foreboding aesthetics, swirling camerawork and a distinctive score.

This supernatural mystery doesn't entirely come together, yet remains hypnotic in its ideas and atmosphere.

A morbid little TV movie in the style of "Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense" or "Tails of the Unexpected". Viewers expecting fulci's ultra violent horror may be disappointed. Even so, given the limited budget and TV format he added a realistic autopsy scene together with repeated shots of a corpse in various stages of maggot ridden decay. The only thing that works against this film is that every scene is shot in soft-focus and very brightly lit, which spoils the overall effect. Also it has a happy ending a rarity for a Fulci movie.

Not an essential film by any means but certainly one for fulci's fans. Wait for the end titles though as it includes an odd dedication to Clive Barker from Fulci.

This is one of the last films Fulci directed and you can tell. As this is a decent film it is not a horror movie. It's more of a mystery with very little of what made Fulci a great horror/gore director. It really does stray from the norm for Fulci as this story is more on the story and characters than it is on gore.

Basically, a very wealthy man dies an unnatural death (spewing up blood). His family are all a bunch of money grubbers except his daughter (who is the star of the movie). She has a dream one night that her father comes to her and tells her that he was murdered and that she needs to find the person that killed him before it's too late.

Now, the story is kind of interesting but things just don't click together. You can tell with many of the scenes that Fulci was trying to incorporate his psychedelic horror style but the story wasn't right for that style. There were though many scenes that were good and very eye catching. The music in the movie was very hypnotic and enjoyable. The big problem with this movie is the gore. There is very little gore. The gore that is in the movie doesn't even go on par with his work in the late 70's and early 80's. Though, there was one funny scene at the beginning of the movie involving a crying child and his crazed father threatening to stab him with a knife.

Over all, for Fulci fans I have to rate this a 3/10. For a regular movie, I have to rate this a 5/10. It's not bad but it's not good.

"Voices from Beyond" is an overall solid Italian thriller, padded with typical Fulciesque gore scenes. I say padded because you'll quickly notice that, albeit very cool and delightfully gruesome, the gory bits are absolutely irrelevant to the story and they just seem to be included because the fans expect no less from Mr. Fulci. The gore occurs during several nightmare-sequences, a totally gratuitous autopsy and through repeated images of a slowly decomposing corpse. The rotting process goes incredibly fast here, by the way. Only moments after the burial, the corpse is already covered in maggots and cobwebs! Anyway, you certainly don't need these gloriously gooey moments in order to follow the story, but they sure make the movie more entertaining and easier to digest (…except if you have a weak stomach, of course). The actual story, written by Lucio Fulci himself, is quite compelling and revolves on the arrogant and despicable Mainardi family. The patriarch – Georgio – died from food poisoning, but his soul is restless and can't help thinking his dead was a carefully planned murder conspiracy. Therefore he seeks supernatural contact with the only remaining person he can trust, namely his cherubic teenage daughter Rosy. Guided by the voice of her departed father, Rosy investigates the various reasons why the entire Mainardi family wanted Georgio dead. The premise might sound a little silly; yet "Voices from Beyond" is quite involving and the tension is adequately build up. The film as a wholesome may not rank among his best efforts, but this is definitely one of Lucio Fulci's finest achievements in directing! There are several highly imaginative scenes to state his mastery, most notably the part where Georgio's body lies in state and the family members come to pay their last 'respects'. With each person standing before him, we are informed – through flashbacks - about the conflicts (read: possible motivations for killing) between him/her and the deceased. Very powerful! There are negative aspects as well, of course, like the occasionally poor dialogs and monologues, especially when Georgio's soul speaks! I suppose this is why dead people don't talk… They say stupid and cheesy things. Also, you should prepare for a dull and completely UNexciting climax. It's a really lousy ending to an overall recommended thriller. Now then, who wants a slice of eyeball-omelet?

Voices from Beyond (1991)

** (out of 4)

Made-for-TV flick ended up being the next to last film for the Italian goremaster. In the film a father suddenly dies and his young daughter arrives and starts hearing his voice. The father wants his daughter to discover the truth behind his death but it won't be easy as he made quite a few enemies in his life. One could debate the merit of Fulci's later day works but then again we could debate much of his gore period as well. If you don't mind the cheapness of his later films then you might want to check this one out as it somewhat comes off as a greatest hits from the director. The story itself is pretty stupid and it's doubtful anyone watching is really going to care who the killer actually is. I can't sit here and say that I figured out who did it but then again I really wasn't trying to figure it out. Also, as expected, the performances aren't the strongest and none of them are helped but the cheap dubbing that sounds rather silly. With that said, how many people actually come to Fulci for a story and good acting? What we come to a Fulci film for is gore and this one here offers quite a bit of it so don't let the fact that this was made-for-TV stand in your way. The gore levels are pretty high from start to finish as we get a fake looking stabbing, an autopsy scene with guts being pulled out and several other gory deaths. We also get another nice touch of visiting inside the father's grave every few days just to see what shape his body is in. It's also worth noting that there's a sequence where zombies attack one of the possible suspects so it was somewhat nice seeing the director doing one more scene inside that famous genre that he helped shape. The film also throws in a fair amount of sex and nudity so the sleaze factor is pretty high on all levels. Again, this isn't a masterpiece or one of Fulci's strongest works but it does contain enough of what we've come to expect from him.