Voices From Beyond

Fulci's penultimate film before his sad death was to be one of his finest late works, with 'Voices From Beyond' steps back in pace to his earlier works with a chilling and engrossing supernatural horror.

The film opens with a bloody dream sequence where a mother dreams that her husband is irritated beyond redemption by the cries of their son, so he heads off to his room where he brutally stabs him repeatedly to his death. Cue the opening titles and then we cut to the same man lying on his deathbed, blood gurgling from his lips as his gathered family look on. This family though are not the sort of loving caring family that one would hope for but (as is always the case with these Euro movies) a selfish bunch of devious individuals all with their own motives and agenda. Soon after the man dies his loving daughter travels to the family home where she soon suspects that her fathers death wasn't quite so innocent and soon she starts dreaming that her father is communicating with her from beyond the grave and this unlikely scenario is the set piece for her investigation into unfolding the truth of what really happened to her deceased dad.

Whilst many of Fulci's prior late career works were critically disregarded for their blatant and brutal exploitative nature (which isn't a bad thing in my books), 'Voices From Beyond' harks to a more straight faced and chilling side to his work reminiscent of say his interpretation of Poe's 'Black Cat'. Atmospheric direction combined with an intriguing script (a nice mix of supernatural and who-dunnit mystery) and with the addition of a fine score by the always exemplary Stelvio Cipriani 'Voices From Beyond' should please even the most demanding and critical of Euro horror fans. Although there isn't a multitude of gory scenarios there are some nicely done subtle graphic moments and on this occasion Fulci seems to have opted not to use gore for gores sake, and ok sure I love a lot of splatter but when the pace of film dictates otherwise then I'm happy to kick back with it.

This DVD release from EC Entertainment is pretty much faultless too. Although there is absolutely nothing here in the way of extras the important thing that should only really matter is that the film is presented in such a gorgeous manner that there'll be no room for complaint. The fully uncut print looks simply stunning with no noticeable print damage or audio problems throughout and EC have lavished this rightfully with a delicious anarmorhpic widescreen mastering. Needless to say it looks great and other future potential licensors will have a hard time attempting to try improve on this grade A presentation.

A vastly underrated chiller from the late great master and a lovely looking presentation from the good folk at EC Entertainment. Fans of Fulci waste no time in picking this release up now!

Review by Alan Simpson