Lucio Fulci’s Voices from Beyond, the Italian gore-meister penultimate film, was released in the midst of a slew of made-for-television and direct-to-video productions that constitute weak tea in comparison. Though it doesn’t punch with quite the power of his early-’80s masterworks, this is comparatively briskly paced genre fare that doesn’t stint on Fulci’s trademark gore.
The storyline lashes together the internecine family dynamics of a nighttime soap opera, an Agatha Christie-style mystery (replete with a particularly nasty method for murder), and a gothic-inflected ghost story. After businessman and paterfamilias Giorgio Mainardi (Duilio Del Prete) passes away while coughing up buckets of blood, his daughter, Rosy (Karina Huff), comes home from college to find out whodunit. The suspects include pretty much the rest of the family: Giorgio’s stepmother, Hilda (Frances Nacmah); her son, Mario (Pascal Persiano); and Giorgio’s unfaithful wife, Lucy (Bettina Giovanni). Even Giorgio’s young son, David (Damiano Azzos), whom he suspects to be illegitimate, comes under suspicion.
The film’s major conceit is that Giorgio communicates with Rosy from beyond the grave, appearing to her in dreams, trying to get her to solve his murder. It turns out, though, that he can only do so while his body maintains its corporeal integrity. Periodically, Fulci returns to shots of Giorgio in his coffin, his flesh decaying, cobwebs and critters invading his sanctum. This gruesome tableau allows Fulci to fully indulge in his love of gory makeup effects.
The dream sequences aren’t Voices from Beyond’s only engagement with oneiric revelations. In fact, the film opens with a dreamy psych-out worthy of early Brian De Palma, with Giorgio abandoning his nuptial bed to repeatedly stab a screaming David, subtly acknowledging that Lucy realizes that Giorgio doubts his paternity. Fulci apparently loves this filicidal scene so much that he reprises it later in the film with some violent amplifications.
But in terms of stunning set pieces, that’s nothing compared to Mario’s unsettling dream of being attacked by a horde of shambling zombies. This allows Fulci, late in his career, to make some gratifying callbacks to some of his earlier genre gems: the undead and the gothic stained-glass ambiance recall Zombie and City of the Living Dead, respectively. At the same time, Mario’s nightmare doesn’t exactly get us much deeper into his psychology.
The film’s coda, with Rosy saying a last farewell to Giorgio at his tombstone, turns exceedingly bizarre when she breaks down into maniacal laughter. It goes way past a cackle of triumph at having solved the mystery, suggesting that she’s been unhinged by her experiences. This also smacks of De Palma, several of whose films—particularly Sisters and Carrie—conclude with their heroines in some state of mental derangement. It’s just another bizarre flourish in a film that abounds in them, endowing it with a surreal frisson almost entirely absent in other Fulci films of the period, save for the gonzo meta madness that is Cat in the Brain.
Image/Sound
Severin presents Voices from Beyond in 2160p UHD, sourced from a 4K scan of the original camera negative: Colors, like the blue tint on shots of Giorgio in his grave, really pop; black levels are deep and uncrushed; and fine details of the costumes and Antonello Geleng’s set designs are much clearer and more legible than in earlier Blu-ray releases. Audio comes in a DTS-HD Master Audio two-channel mono in both English and Italian, which, given that the film was dubbed in both languages in post, sound just fine, save for some hiss and tinniness in the upper register. Unfortunately, Stelvio Cipriani’s synth-heavy score, complete with chanting children and odd percussive patterns, comes across as a little buried in the mix.
Extras
An audio-only interview with Lucio Fulci covers the afterlife and dreams, his avoidance of cemeteries, the film’s special effects and locations, and conversations with David Cronenberg. There are also on-camera interviews with actor Pascal Persiano, set designer Antonello Geleng, and prop master Vincenzo Luzzi, who all share anecdotes about working with the temperamental Fulci. Stephen Thrower, author of Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci, goes into the genesis of the film, situates it in Fulci’s canon, opines about the performances, and mentions Fulci’s own grudging assessment of the film. Finally, the three-disc package includes a 12-track CD of Stelvio Cipriani’s score that really delivers a full and rich sound.
Overall
Lucio Fulci’s Voices from Beyond, a late-career delight floating in a surrounding sea of mediocrity, is given an impressive 4K UHD transfer and some solid extras by Severin.
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