Voix d'outre-tombe

Caution: Some plot and scenes revealed

"Voices from beyond" is one of Fulci's most coherent and successful productions, especially among his last films. As usual, the subject are the horrors of death and what comes after it.

The story deals with the death of Giorgi Mainardi, a man with a lot of money and enemies. After the prologue and the opening credits we witness the violent death of Mainardi, vomitting loads of blood. During his burial ceremony we are introduced to the main characters and in flash back sequences to why they had good reason to hate him. After his death, Mainardi manages to keep contact to the living: To his only trustee, his daughter Rosy, he talks in dreams, and his enemies he haunts with terrible nightmares. This concept gives Fulci the opportunity to insert many wildly surreal dream sequences (including, believe it or not, a zombie attack), and he makes good use of it. This dreamlike aspect of the movie is contrasted to the clinical analysis of Mainardi's death and decay, starting from his unpleasant demise on the death bed, ranging over the autopsy carried out by the Maestro (i.e., Fulci) himself, and ending in repeated shots of his decaying corpse.

Other fine images include a still life with broken light bulbs (the device used to kill Mainardi) which summarizes the evil plot against him.

We also watch the claustrophobia of Mainardi's father whose spirit is still alive but who has no means to communicate with the outside world, except his tears. He has to suffer interminable mockings through Mainardi's enemies.

Maybe this character expresses Fulci's own incapacity to express himself properly in his latest movies due to extremely limited budgets and equipment. In fact, in an interview Fulci declared that he wanted to make one more movie with sufficient production values (i.e., "The Wax mask"), so that he can die in peace. As everybody knows, fate has declined this favour to him.

Nevertheless, with "Voices from beyond", Fulci has demonstrated that he could create something of value even with restricted resources.

More of a mystery movie with some gratuitous horror elements thrown in; mediocre overall.

It starts with a woman having a nightmare in which her sex partner gets out of bed, goes into the room of her crying child, and kills it. She wakes up. Then, that man is dying in a hospital, spitting up blood. His estranged daughter arrives, and he manages to contact her through her dreams (I think), and he wants her to find out who killed him before his body entirely decomposes in its grave.

There's not too much mystery about who did it, or even how; most viewers will have figured that out long before it is revealed. I'm not sure the way he was killed would really have worked.

Anyway, the horror elements get in through: a gory autopsy, the recurring dream of the man killing the boy, a nightmare in which a plate of eggs turn into eyes which are then cut, and several shots of the decomposing man both in nightmares and actually in his grave.

I was a little surprised to see a dedication in the end by Fulci to Clive Barker! Interesting.

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.

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.