After finishing Antropophagus, another D’Amato horror flick (which I loved) I placed Beyond the Darkness in my Netflix list expecting something great. Everyone has said that it was D’Amato’s most insane gore picture. I will not lie to you, there was plenty of gore, but it went nowhere, it was shallow and cheap. I only really got a good thrill during the dismemberment of the hitchhiker. But more on that later.

Young Frank, who is a rich orphan, lives in a mansion and seems to live a care free life. He has a girlfriend which means everything to him...everything. But the sinister housekeeper Iris is jealous of her and kills her off using a voodoo doll. Frank is at her bedside and though you’d think he’d be distraught his stupid face never changes. When he gets home Iris comforts him. Holding him close to her chest she unbuttons her blouse and breast feeds him. He is sad and confused so he sucks on her boob. Later he concocts a twisted plan to bring his girlfriend back. He digs up her corpse and puts her in the back of his van. While he is driving in the dark his van gets a flat and after he’s changed it he finds a chunky hitchhiker girl in the passenger seat. She’d snuck in. After smoking some weed the hitchhiker falls asleep and Frank drives the van into his garage.

Now this dumbass starts to work on his girlfriend's corpse and doesn’t even think of getting rid of the fat hitchhiker girl. He strips her down, disembowels her, pulling all the intestines and stuff out and eats her heart while it’s still squirting blood. Then he puts tubes in her nose and sucks out some bloody sludge. He is planning on stuffing her up and using her as a large throw pillow. He gets interrupted when the fat girl wakes up and starts asking questions (understandably). She badly scratches his neck with her long nails so he teaches her a lesson by pulling all her finger nails out with large pliers. He finishes up by suffocating her. This man must have had some serious mental problems even before his girlfriend died. When your loved one passes you don’t go keeping them like a human pillow. And then he kills so easily. Id like to know how this freak grew up, his childhood. He was probably killing animals, cooking them and eating them in his backyard. And the housekeeper is even worse than him. I don’t know about you but I like some back story on my murderer.

Iris then helps Frank dress his girlfriend and lay her on a bed. Now comes my favorite scene of the film. They have cool ways of disposing of the bodies in this movie and here is no different. Frank is pouring some lethal acid into the bathtub. He pours like three large jugs of the thing. Meanwhile Iris chops off the fat girls arms, legs, and head and tosses them into the tub. The acid eats everything up and there’s a creamy mess leftover. By the way the fat girl has some sweet boobs. You don’t often see fat girl’s boobs in movies. They want slim girls. But these boobs were a bouncy delight, considering she was dead and having her limbs severed from her body. Later Iris seduces Frank by sticking her hand in his pants and stroking his cock. A jogger also falls prey to Franks murderous ways. While having sex with her he bites a chunk off her neck. Now for some reason they have a cremation oven in the mansion and in goes the jogger. Frank and Iris can’t seem to get along now. They get into a nasty brawl where Iris pokes Frank’s eye out. Iris’ jealousy even goes as far as the corpse of the darn girlfriend!

I did not like this movie. It’s strange, slow, and shallow. I’d watch it again with a friend though to give it another shot. I guess you can never guess what to expect when you have pornographers making horror films.

- Jorge Antonio Lopez