The Beyond The Door series is not so much a Series as whatever Films people wanted to make and sell as Sequels.  As you will learn in the coming days, there is not even the remotest of connection in themes between the films, let alone characters or plot.  As a bonus, the 'third film' was released 12 years after the second one!  We're supposed to buy this, why exactly?!?  The first film is a pretty blatant knock-off of The Exorcist.  I could say more, but...that's a pretty good summary, actually.  Let's dive right into...

The film begins in a very odd manner with a shot of a car flying off the side of a California roadway.  Damn you, Toonces!  When you will learn?!?  The shot of the car flying off freezes, however, and we get a droning narration going over it.  Our narrative jumps to that of a young woman going grocery shopping.  The film tries to set her up as 'Mother of the Year' from the get-go by having her go shopping and leaving the kids in the car.  Even in 1974, that was still a bad thing!  Oh and her kids have weird habits that are never really explained.  The boy eats nothing but pea soup (it does not pay off in the way you think), while the girl has several copies of the book 'Love Story' that she reads.  Yes, she has multiple copies of the same book...and it's that one...and she carries them all together.  The father of the kids is a music producer, which is an excuse to give us some padding shots of rehearsal.  Do they add anything?  Nope.  At a dinner party, our heroine learns that she is pregnant and her body is not taking it well.  Oh and she's several weeks ahead of schedule for no reason.  It's probably not a good pregnancy when your baby is growing up super-fast and causing you to vomit blood, is it?  Our heroine acts worried about this for a while and...that's about it for a while.  Let's skip that, shall we?

Last House on the Beach

The plot to this movie is embarrassingly-simple. A trio of men rob a bank in the day-time and flee. Things did not go smoothly, however, and two people in the building were killed. We don't find out by whom until later. As luck (good or bad, depending on who you are) would have it, they hide out at the titular location, only to discover that it is occupied...by a hot nun and her students (read:28yearolds). I guess we can stay for a couple of days.

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The movie is not completely terrible, but it is quite indecisive. The blond-haired gang leader is always 'playing nice' when the others get a little too grabby. He actually makes them stop fondling one 'girl' under the pretense of them having to leave early the next morning. In the middle of the night, however, two of the men grab the girl and go to have their way with her. When the nun tries to intercede, the 'nice guy' grabs her and makes her watch. So which one is it? He tries to give a speech later saying how he 'never did anything.' The movie, thinking us to be completely dumb, shows scenes from the robbery of him shooting two people juxtaposed against his 'explanation' of the events. Yes, because we clearly trusted him, movie!

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The ending is alright, though it feels a lot like Thriller aka They Call Her One-Eye. The bad guys all get shot in slow-motion and we are all supposed to feel better. The blond leader goes down really slow though. He gets shotgun-blasted in the chest, but still fights the girls. Who the hell is this guy- Andrew Jackson (look it up)! He gets beaten up with sticks in a very prolonged scene. Movie over yet? Yes. The End.
Incidentally, the above movie is the one with the line I quoted in the teaser.

Last House on the Edge of the Park

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So what do we get exactly? One guy gets beaten up and tied to a table, where he spends 80% of the movie. Another- who looks like a cross between Ryan Phillipe in Cruel Intentions and that jerk on Gossip Girl- gets beaten up a lot, even to the point where he should clearly either be dead or nearly dead. One model lady gets her top pulled down a couple of times and yelled at. A brunette is nearly raped by the other guy, but he chickens out. Later, after he says that he doesn't want to hurt her, she does it willingly. Wow, you are coerced easily in barely an hour. The girl who would not put out for our lead is yelled at a lot and is forced to finally 'follow-through' with it. Oh and another girl shows up right at the one hour mark so she can be cut with a straight razor.

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Why is this movie better? In spite of its masochistic tone, there is a point to it all. In the end, we learn that the whole thing was a set-up. You see, they have a random 'girl gets killed by the villain' scene which feels unnecessary. Later, we learn that the girl is, wait for it, the blond guy's sister. He let him there, made him mad and got attacked so he could eventually get his gun and kill the guy in 'self-defense.' Yeah, it is a weird and obtuse revenge scheme, but even he admits it. The villain gets shot several times- including in his special area- but takes around five minutes straight to die. Also, he barely ever bleeds from his four bullet wounds while in the pool. I guess we should all feel better, right? The End.

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I will give the latter film credit- I would definitely NOT do a revenge scheme of my own now. Not because of the whole 'cycle of violence' thing. Just because I realize now how hard it is to pull off. Plus, your friends may not like being 'raped for your cause.' They don't elaborate on that part, but I would think that there was some dislike of that guy afterward. So this goes to show you that good, iconic films should be left alone. It's not like anyone would remake this movie...oh wait, they already did. Stay tuned next Halloween for I Spite on Your Grave (2010), I guess.

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