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[ecc]

[fdsmedia]

Looks nice, thanks for the screens! 

[ecc]

I think it looks quite nice and the matted scope compositions look great.  I remember the video versions looking like your typical late eighties Italian horror films with that gauzy soft focus but the disc looks good.

[Johan Melle]

I have the old Dragon DVD. Haven't seen it in ages but I seem to remember it looked OK (or at least it did some years back). I've never been a big fan of the film itself, though, but it does have its moments and a couple of stylish sequences in spite of a low budget.

Eric: Veronica Zinny is not Urbano Barberini's mother. She's the mother of Karl Zinny who was Urbano's co-star in DEMONS (1985), and she is also the mother of Veronica Zinny from Lamberto Bava's MACABRE. I believe it was Lamberto himself who first made the error of referring to Victoria Zinny as Urbano's mother in an interview on the AB disc of MACABRE. I guess he got Karl and Urbano confused.

Btw, Karl and Victoria Zinny appear in Pier Carpi's RING OF DARKNESS together.

[ecc]

Eric: Veronica Zinny is not Urbano Barberini's mother. She's the mother of Karl Zinny who was Urbano's co-star in DEMONS (1985), and she is also the mother of Veronica Zinny from Lamberto Bava's MACABRE. I believe it was Lamberto himself who first made the error of referring to Victoria Zinny as Urbano's mother in an interview on the AB disc of MACABRE. I guess he got Karl and Urbano confused.

The MACABRE doc is where I got the info.  When Barberini and Karl Zinny showed up together in DEMONS, I wondered if they might have been half-siblings or something.

[fdsmedia]

Amok Train is in stock at Xploited Cinema:

http://xploitedcinema.com/catalog/amok-train-p-13707.html

[fdsmedia]

According to the Code Red website, Beyond the Door will be released in September - approximately one year after I started this thread.. 

[fdsmedia]

Cover artwork:

[Inspector Tanzi]

Amok Train is in stock at Xploited Cinema:

http://xploitedcinema.com/catalog/amok-train-p-13707.html

God awful film.

[Nanni Vitali]

I caught BEYOND THE DOOR (and not AMOK TRAIN...) at the Egyptian in Los Angeles sometime early this year/late last year, as it turns out the same night that Assonitis was doing his audio commentary for the disc.  He actually showed up to introduce the movie, which was screened second on a bill with ZEDER. 

I thought BEYOND THE DOOR was amazing, another indefensible spaghetti rip-off movie that somehow, through the incredible skill of the Italians, really worked.  I was with a friend of mine who like me is also incredibly spooked by anything EXORCIST-related and we genuinely found this completely ridiculous movie scary. 

One of the things I liked about the film is how, in reflection, the people who put it together couldn't watch EXORCIST for reference so easily -- this was before home video.  So these guys had to use memory and film stills to recreate the vibe of the Friedkin original.  Put another way: whereas the Italians could do their own recreations of gothic horror or westerns at that point as second nature, this particular modern shade of horror is something else, something new.  BEYOND THE DOOR has a bunch of disorienting optical effects and weirdo sound design work that is a riff on the original, and a lot of it doesn't work, but some of it really does. 

As a completest when it comes to possession movies I really dug it and look forward to this dvd.

[Michael Blanton]

I thought BEYOND THE DOOR was amazing, another indefensible spaghetti rip-off movie that somehow, through the incredible skill of the Italians, really worked.  I was with a friend of mine who like me is also incredibly spooked by anything EXORCIST-related and we genuinely found this completely ridiculous movie scary. 

BEYOND THE DOOR has a bunch of disorienting optical effects and weirdo sound design work that is a riff on the original, and a lot of it doesn't work, but some of it really does. 

As a completest when it comes to possession movies I really dug it and look forward to this dvd.

Ha!  me too! 

I just watched this last night for the first time, The Simple Movie version (see link below, cover E),  and it really blew me away.  The title song from the recording session, Bargain with the Devil (I believe), is a funk classic and really kicks the film into high gear from the get go.  The rest of the score sounds like a traditional Euro lounge score that was handed over to Brian Eno with instructions to Enofy it.   I'd love to get my hands on the soundtrack.

I also dug the foulmouthed kids and the scene where their bedroom becomes possessed.  Other great scenes - off the top of my head - include: when the little boy watches his mum float across her bedroom; when the black musicians follow the husband throught the streets of San Francisco (which also looks great in this film); and the scene on the houseboat where the women informs the doctor that Dimitri died a few years ago and appears to continues talking after the doctor has left.  Surreal shit!

A very psychedelic, over-the-top, depraved piece of possession cinema. 

I, too, dug it! 

http://xploitedcinema.com/catalog/beyond-door-cover-p-13334.html

[Andrew Monroe]

I`m not too big on this one, though I still may get the Code Red disc for the extras. Shame really, as the trailer was a major nightmare-inducer when I was a kid. The score is great though.

[Nanni Vitali]

Good to hear of another fan of the movie (Michael), and, uh, not a fan (Andrew)!

Am actually finally finishing up reading the Lucas Bava book (it took me a whole year ?!?!) and am on the SHOCK chapter, so revisiting that movie will make a nice pairing with the Assonitis film.

As far as creepy possessed Italian kids (and man there are a lot of them!), I am a fan of CURSED MEDALLION and will try to start a thread here about it -- that movie deserved more attention...

[Michael Blanton]

Good to hear of another fan of the movie (Michael), and, uh, not a fan (Andrew)!

Am actually finally finishing up reading the Lucas Bava book (it took me a whole year ?!?!) and am on the SHOCK chapter, so revisiting that movie will make a nice pairing with the Assonitis film.

As far as creepy possessed Italian kids (and man there are a lot of them!), I am a fan of CURSED MEDALLION and will try to start a thread here about it -- that movie deserved more attention...

Ha, again! 

I watched Cursed Medallion for the first time about five days ago.  Unfortunatley in Italian, so Richard Johnson and Joanna Cassidy are dubbed.  Good stuff too, though I found Che sei? to be more in line with the paracinematic experince I seek with films/movies/flics/etc. 

[MikeMalloy]

Yeah, I saw this (er, BEYOND THE DOOR; there's so many films under discussion here now) for the first time many years back on VHS. I was immediately struck by how oddly it began; iirc, it began with the devil narrating the action of a pre-credits sequence. Everything from there on is so wonderfully bizarre -- from the San Francisco exteriors (which clash with everything else about the film) to the creepy frame holds in the editing during one of the possession scenes.

And yes, the music is great. Does anybody remember the camera angle from the descending elevator -- it was a shot of the husband walking towards the camera in a concrete courtyard? I love the funky bit of music there. When I first heard it, I ran to the closet, dug out my gee-tar, quickly learned the notes and starting playing along with it.

Btw, Mark Goldblatt (the editor of T2, the original TERMINATOR, RAMBO 2, X-MEN 3, STARSHIP TROOPERS, etc etc etc) is a huge fan of this film.