The Beyond is a 1981 Italian Southern Gothic supernatural horror film directed by Lucio Fulci. It is based on an original story created by Dardano Sacchetti, starring Catriona MacColl and David Warbeck. Its plot follows a woman who inherits a hotel in rural Louisiana that was once the site of a horrific murder, and which may be a gateway to hell. It is the second film in Fulci's Gates of Hell trilogy after City of the Living Dead (1980), and was followed by The House by the Cemetery (1981).
Italian theatrical release poster by Enzo Sciotti
The historic Otis House in Madisonville, Louisiana (top as seen in film; bottom in 2008) served as the main setting for the film.
The white contact lenses worn by several of the actors (Cinzia Monreale pictured) completely blocked their vision.
Southern Gothic is an artistic subgenre of fiction, country music, film, theatre, and television that are heavily influenced by Gothic elements and the American South. Common themes of Southern Gothic include storytelling of deeply flawed, disturbing, or eccentric characters who may be involved in hoodoo, decayed or derelict settings, grotesque situations, and other sinister events relating to or stemming from poverty, alienation, crime, or violence.
Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951).
Seward Plantation House, Independence, a strictly fantastical one.
Eudora Welty was labeled a Southern Gothic author, though she disliked the label
Cherie Priest has been identified as a modern Southern Gothic writer
