Movies

Let’s be honest: some film critics will spend pages decrying the “worst film ever made” as if to purge themselves of the memory. But to really atone for our moviegoing sins? We must watch Night of Horror (1981)—the cinematic equivalent of receiving a broccoli-flavored ice cream cone at your own birthday party. And as punishments go, this is less “walk of shame” than “forced march of mirth.” Yes, dear reader, I lost a bet, and this scraggly, haunted little opus was my penance. Was it agony? A little. Did I enjoy myself anyway? More than I care to admit.

Let’s not pretend otherwise: “The Beyond” is not a movie that stoops to court your comprehension, let alone your approval. The first thing to say about Lucio Fulci’s 1981 Southern Gothic splatter opera—this fever-dream of congealed dread, oozing viscera, and poetic free-association—is that it laughs in the face of what most filmgoers consider narrative logic. But in so doing, it offers up a delirious orgy of supernatural delirium the likes of which American genre fare, buttoned-up and market-tested, wouldn’t dare attempt.