An odd film, this one is.

Now, me, I absolutely love Beyond the Darkness.  However, this 1979 Italian film is definitely not for everyone and I’m always very careful about recommending it.  At it’s heart, it’s a story about a man named Frank Wyler (Kieran Canter) who is so in love with Anna Volkl (Cinzia Monreale, who Italian horror fans will immediately recognize from her iconic role as Emily in Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond) that he won’t even allow death to keep them apart.  At the same time, the film contains scenes of cannibalism, gore, and nudity (poor Cinzia Monreale had to spent the majority of the movie naked and pretending not to breathe) that were so graphic that the film was actually banned in several countries.  Did I mention that Frank’s a taxidermist?  If you’ve ever wanted to see a film about how messy taxidermy can be, I guess this would be the one to go with.

Frank is a young man who has inherited a villa in the country.  He lives there with Iris (Franca Stoppi), the servant who has literally raised him from his birth.  Frank is a handsome but strange man, one who spends most his time locked away in his garage and stuffing dead animals.  (Before anyone panics, there’s no animal cruelty to be witnessed in this film.  Though there is a bit of human cruelty….)  Frank is in love with Anna but Anna has recently been taken ill.  She’s in the hospital, where the doctor’s simply cannot figure out what’s wrong with her.  Could it have something to do with the voodoo curse that the jealous Irish has placed on her?

When Anna finally dies, Iris is convinced that she’ll have Frank to herself but Frank has other ideas.  After the funeral, Frank promptly digs Anna back up and then takes her body back to his garage.  Unfortunately, along the way, an obnoxious hitchhiker (played by Lucia D’Elia) decides that Frank’s going to give her a ride.  The hitchhiker ends up passing out in Frank’s van.

So, here Frank is.  All he wants to do is stuff his dead girlfriend.  But he’s got this obnoxious hitchhiker running around the garage and knocking over buckets of intestines!  Frank kills the hitchhiker and Iris, despite being disgusted by the fact that Frank has insisted on bringing Anna home, helps him dispose of the hitchhiker’s body.  The problem’s solved, except for the fact that Frank is now becoming obsessed with cannibalism….

Okay, it’s a weird film and it only gets weirder from there.  As I said, it’s definitely not a film for everyone and there’s certain scenes that would be incredibly offensive if not for the fact that the film is so well-directed and Canter, Monreale, and Stoppi are all so well-cast and give such sincere performances that you can’t help but get caught up in the film’s storyline.  Frank may be a spoiled, cannibalistic murderer and Anna might be dead but their love for each other is so sincere that you can’t help but feel for both of them.  Director Aristide Massaccesi (who was usually credited under the name Joe D’Amato) creates an ominous and gothic atmosphere while Goblin provides a pulsating and moody score that perfectly mirror Frank’s descent into madness  (Admittedly, Frank doesn’t have far to descend.)  Massaccesi often said that he only made the film to gross people out but an accidental success is a success nonetheless.