3. Beyond The Darkness (1979)
I am a bit worried that some of you will think I have an obsession with Beyond the Darkness because I perpetually keep writing about it. I don't have an obsession with it but it is such a spicy film, it inevitably ends up on my lists discussing Italian horror and exploitation, and other subgenres of exploitation. This time, I am having a look at Beyond the Darkness for its relevance to necrophilia. Frank is a taxidermist. Thanks to his housekeeper meddling with voodoo dolls, his great love Anna is dead. Deranged with grief, Frank digs her up and embalms her in some pretty horrific scenes. He then puts her in their bed and brings back women to have sex in that bed beside Anna! He is presumably fantasising that the women are Anna. The women see Anna, freak out, and get killed by Frank. There is no corpse humping in Beyond the Darkness, but the film has a totally necrophiliac vibe during the whole proceedings. It is a nasty, squalid piece of filth with poor characterisation. Frank's murderous deeds do not make sense and the housekeeper is a very under developed character whose actions are hard to understand. Still, there is enough titillation and gratuitous gore to please fans of extreme horror movies. This is probably the movie that Joe D'Amato should be best remembered for - a dodgy necrophilia-tinged sleaze fest.