Joe D'amato's 'Beyond the Darkness' (AKA 'Buio Omega' and 'Blue Holocaust') is easily his most accomplished film. Is that saying much? No, not really. But the film is a testament to D'amato's DP work (his real strength), and shows that he could actually direct a film that looked professional. Interestingly, D'amato chose to make porno/gore films, and, by mixing the two genres, he helped create one of the most controversial, criticized and abhorred of all film subgenres. Films like 'Beyond the Darkness' were made solely with their niche audience in mind; the extreme gore and pervasive sexual perversities may seem peculiar, but the payoff was, and still is,considerable.
The film's highlights (possible spoilers) include bizarre character motivations/actions and, of course, the rather original and disgusting GORE, which plays out something like this: Frank exhumes his wife, cuts her open, removes her heart, bites it as blood squirts from the ventricles, then -- voila! -- taxidermied wife, ready for exhibition.
Or this: Iris (Frank's motherly maid/lover) chops up a female hitchhiker and chucks the body parts into an acid-bath, turning the bathroom and tub into a charnel house. The resulting black, putrid, fleshy soup ranks as one of the most nauseating images in cinema history, right up there with Jorg Buttgereit's 'Nekromantic' subjects. Or how about this: During foreplay, Frank bites a chunk out of a female jogger's neck, chews and swallows. Yum! She ends up in an oven, and D'amato makes sure we see her body writhing as the flames consume it.
But the most disgusting shots (really!) are the simplest - extreme close-ups of Iris eating her stew, intercut with quick flashbacks to the black, bloody acid-bath carnage. Wasn't the acid-bath enough? No! Do we have to associate the carnage with hunger? Yes! A rather perverse and sick film, not recommended for most. >
The film's highlights (possible spoilers) include bizarre character motivations/actions and, of course, the rather original and disgusting GORE, which plays out something like this: Frank exhumes his wife, cuts her open, removes her heart, bites it as blood squirts from the ventricles, then -- voila! -- taxidermied wife, ready for exhibition.
Or this: Iris (Frank's motherly maid/lover) chops up a female hitchhiker and chucks the body parts into an acid-bath, turning the bathroom and tub into a charnel house. The resulting black, putrid, fleshy soup ranks as one of the most nauseating images in cinema history, right up there with Jorg Buttgereit's 'Nekromantic' subjects. Or how about this: During foreplay, Frank bites a chunk out of a female jogger's neck, chews and swallows. Yum! She ends up in an oven, and D'amato makes sure we see her body writhing as the flames consume it.
But the most disgusting shots (really!) are the simplest - extreme close-ups of Iris eating her stew, intercut with quick flashbacks to the black, bloody acid-bath carnage. Wasn't the acid-bath enough? No! Do we have to associate the carnage with hunger? Yes! A rather perverse and sick film, not recommended for most. >