14. Beyond The Darkness (1979)
Taxidermist/wealthy heir Frank has a bit of a problem whenever his housekeeper (who is obsessed with him) does voodoo rituals to kill his beloved darling Anna. Frank is distraught when Anna dies and he digs up her body and in a seriously gross out scene, embalms her body. Up to the bedroom she goes to keep Frank company. Frank comes across several young women and kills them brutally, enlisting the help of his housekeeper to cover up evidence of the deaths and resultant corpses. After one traumatic time, the housekeeper gives Frank a hand job to cheer him up. As you do. She is so obsessed with him, she invites all of her relatives to a dinner and announces her engagement to him. Frank rebuffs this and earns the ire of the housekeeper. Now why is she sporting a great big chopping knife? If you have a taste for depravity, Beyond the Darkness will tick all of the boxes. From the highly realistic embalming of Anna to putting the corpses of young women into acid baths and the incinerator, Joe D'Amato expertly crafts a film which is guaranteed to disgust, depress and distress. There is a highly morbid air to the film - thanks to its theme of necrophilia. It is a pity that D'Amato did not make more straight horror films because with his eye for depravity, he could have made some mega cult movie classics. For more depraved D'Amato hijinks, check out Porno Holocaust and Erotic Nights of the Living Dead in which he attempts to marry a zombie horror film with hardcore porn.