Beyond Darkness (1990)

Memorable, crazy movie

It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Beyond Darkness is a b horror picture about a haunted house. It's Poltergeist meets The Exorcist.A reverend and his unsuspecting family move into a house with mysterious supernatural symptoms. Even more mysterious was why a married Protestant minister was a part of the Catholic Church, but these are details, just a minor technicality! The creepy ambient music was doled out with a heavy hand and it worked. The special effects were on point, and the tone was camp-free. The acting was what you would want to see in this type of story. The hag and the Catholic exorcist killed it. The minister and his wife, not so much. The writing didn't make a whole lot of sense. It could have used more development, such as the backstory about the property being built on the sight of a mass witch lynching. The opening scene more than made up for the gaps in the narrative logic. Beyond Darkness is nobody's classic, but it delivers.

There's a reason why this claims to be a part of a series it's not: no one would watch it otherwise!A collared priest enters a prison to give last rites to a middle aged female serial killer. Somehow she's stolen a number of stout children's souls, and the priest can see them. He's somehow affected by her evil holy book, which has a picture of Satan and a house in it that look much more recent than all the other pages. He turns into an alcoholic who staggers around town. Apparently he is possessed and also having a crisis of faith.Anyway, another collared priest moves into the house from the book because an older priest gave it to him for him and his family of four. There's a strange giant black swan rocker in the children's room they assume was a gift for the kids. One of the doors has a poorly- bricked and stuccoed wall behind it with a slit that glows. Obviously supernatural bad stuff starts happening soon, but the family for some reason stays. Turns out the older priest knew that the entire family would be in danger, but he thought it would be a good idea anyway for some reason.The movie is filled with terrible editing, terrible dialogue, and terrible plotting. The special effects aren't so good, mainly the house being full of smoke and red light as the cast has sweaty faces. There's a bunch of somewhat spooky zombie witches. A mixture of witches and innocent women had been burned at the stake on the site years ago. What the connection is to the serial killer is anyone's guess.It's a poor mix of The Amityville Horror (haunted house), The Exorcist (exorcists, possession and crisis of faith), and Poltergeist (child taken into other world, stuff flying around). Don't bother! Who would actually believe this as a sequel to Evil Dead?

"La Casa 5"/"Beyond Darkness" is another lamentable horror film from Claudio Fragasso,the man behind incredibly awful "Troll 2"(1990).The plot is simple:a priest(Gene Le Brock)and his family move into new house.Unfortunately the house was built over the place where twenty witches were burnt at the stake.Soon the terror begins..."La Casa 5" is a typical Italian possessed house horror which owes a lot to "The Amityville Horror"(1979).The script is mediocre,the acting is horrible and there is absolutely no gore.The special effects are also pretty bad including a possessed radio and flying cleaver.The film is not as painful as "Troll 2",but it's close.Skip it.My rating:4 out of 10.

Well, I'm not going to talk much about that movie, cause I agree in most point with the comment by Zantara, but I just had another thing concerning the Title. &The original title "La Casa 5" an the american subtitle just can't beat the german title "Horror House 2". I never saw a movie called "Horror House" in any video-tape library or on TV an no german homepage knows the first part. So if you think calling it House 5 is ridiculous, nope, german video producers beat that by far.