Beyond the Darkness (Joe D'Amato, 1979)

From the first few minutes, with its thrilling footage of the main character driving a van and some other random things happening, my main thought about Beyond the Darkness was that if Mystery Theater 3000 had watched and mocked gory horror movies, this would have been one of the first they would have done. Frank's girlfriend dies within the first few minutes of the movie (because his creepy maid had a voodoo doll of her), and then he totally snaps. Or maybe he was crazy to begin with, we never really know. He digs up her corpse (after injecting her with...something that I really thought was going to bring her back to life), takes out the organs, and keeps her at his house. But that's not enough for him -- he starts inexplicably killing local girls as well, with, of course, the help of the creepy maid, who is now his fiancee (or thinks she is). But the movie isn't actually as bad as it might seem -- there are some moments of horror, and some really intense gore (the scene where Frank takes out his girlfriend's guts is brutal, even if it's obviously fake). And the movie doesn't make sense until afterward, when you really think about it. It's a fun, weird horror movie with some incredible WTF moments, but I just can't see why all my Netflix friends who have seen the movie have loved it. 6.5/10

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