Beyond Evil (1980) — Triskaidekafiles

BEYOND EVIL

WRITERS: Paul Ross and Herb Freed, based on a story by David Baughn

DIRECTOR: Herb Freed

STARRING: John Saxon as Larry

Lynda Day George as Barbara

Michael Dante as Del

Mario Milano as Albanos

Anne Marisse as Leia

Janice Lynde as Alma

David Opatoshu as Dr. Soloman

QUICK CUT: A couple moves into a new home on a small island, and very quickly Barbara does not adjust well to the new location.

THE MORGUE

Larry - This might be the nicest role John Saxon has ever played. A good husband, faithful, loving, and willing to do anything to make his wife happy.

Barbara - Larry’s wife, who has a reputation of being very high maintenance, but she’s trying to be better and more down to Earth. A lot of this plays into brushing aside some of her early problems. But she seems nice enough, if a bit put upon at times.

Del - A mutual friend of the newlyweds, and he has a history with Barbara, but stepped aside when he saw she made Larry happy. He’s a good guy, but he’s not very reliable, and always looking to make a quick buck, cut corners, and is a borderline con man.

Alma Martin - A woman who was murdered in Larry and Barbara’s new home 100+ years ago. She was promised to a local man to seal a trade deal, but when she caught him being unfaithful, she dabbled in black magic, and they eventually murdered each other. Her spite and deal with Satan kept her going.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! Part two of my "hey these movies feel similar!" trilogy is here with this entry from the 80s, Beyond Evil. I am pleased to say that while this is VERY different from the Devil's Hand, there's something there that genuinely does make them feel in the same vein. Anyways, let's get to this.

As the credits roll, we watch a fire dancer do his thing, and briefly his face becomes that of a devil, and then we spend some time in what I believe to be a wedding celebration.

The presumed bride goes running off into the jungle, and she eventually ends up at the house where we will be spending most of the movie, but more on that later.

You shall know the name of fear, and that name shall be…Mister Happy Pants.

She spies a figure in one of the windows, and out of nowhere, a large stone pillar lands on her arm, pinning her. They bring Doctor Soloman, get her out, and he does his best to splint her arm.

With that out of the way, and giving us a taste of things to come, we jump to the airport, and an unspecified amount of time later, as John Saxon and his wife, Barbara, arrive. I don’t remember if they ever name where they are, but it’s some developing island nation.

They are met by John's friend Del, who also dated Barb way back in the day. Del has some construction work in the area, and he's sucked Larry into it. One could argue it's a get rich quick scheme.

Del was supposed to have a new home set up for them, but things are not quite ready, and he instead sends them off to a hotel. They're not happy about this, since Del has a long history of not coming through, if he ever even gets started.

Also, boy, I sure do love when your actors are talking and getting completely drowned out by airplanes. Sure hope no one said anything important.

But we eventually find out, there is no apartment Del was getting ready, but he got them a whole new house. Yes, the house from the start of the movie.

Larry looks at the paperwork to see what he's in for, and he is shocked at how low the price is. He wants to know if they held a gun to someone's head, or if it's a total dump. He is assured it is not a dump...but you will note that no one said anything about whether guns were held to heads.

They head out to their new home, and it is a ways out of town, without easy access to people if things go wrong. And I find this most relatable.

OH and by the way, there are rumours the place is haunted...gottagobye!

Del tells us the story of Alma Martin and her husband, Esteban. She caught him cheating on their wedding night, and this drove her to black magic to take care of him. As one does.

She must be sending her astral form via a doll to try and seduce some guy.

Esteban knew he was in for it, so he plotted how to stop her, but could never get close enough. So he changed his ways to lure her in.

To make a long story short, he tries poisoning her with wine, bashes her over the head, and disposes of the body.

But as we all know, evil never dies, and she attacked her husband in step processing/slow motion, and snapped his neck.

Everyone else leaves so the newlyweds can get settled in, and after a restless night thanks to those pesky voices in the walls, Alma shows up to keep an eye on the couple.

The next day, their luggage and things arrive, and as Larry is carrying boxes up their staircase, he steps in a puddle of green, slips, and a devil statue falls from one of the upper floors to try and kill him.

Hey, at least there's still finely carved dolls! Praise be to Gamba!

We deal a bit with a subplot of Del trying to leverage money to keep the construction thing going, and I'm kinda breezing past ALL this construction nonsense because it's inconsequential to the plot. Especially for something that takes up so much time.

Larry returns home for a little dinner and 'dessert' if you will, and it's another night of Babs trying to not listen to the whisperers in the walls.

As he heads out the next day, he runs into Doctor Soloman, who says he's a faith healer, and sigh. Must we bring faith healers into this?

Not sure I would be trusting drinks anymore after that story.

Back at the house, the fog rolls in around Barb, and she stabs her hand. Larry rushes home, and they rush to the hospital, under the careful watch of Doctor Albanos.

She barely had a scratch though, and when Doc Albanos tries to prescribe medicine, Barb just laughs it off because she doesn't have much faith in doctors. She also says she won't be wearing a mask, how dare you try and take her freedom??

Oh, and we learn that her cut is a scar in the shape of the same A as Alma had, so she has become one of the marked ones.

That night, they talk about what happened, but Barb is evasive and doesn't want to go back to the doctors. Larry offers her some wine, and she freaks out, remembering the story. Well, now I feel bad about my joke earlier.

Doctor Lou Albanos shows up the next day to talk, and Barbara quickly shows him the door. She wanders outside and he warns her not to go near the crypt.

So wait, you're telling me I got an absolutely steal on an amazing house, AND it has a crypt?? BONUS.

The spirit of Alma senses danger from the doctor, I guess? and as he drives off, pieces of his car just fly off, which is actually pretty cool and unique. Eventually, the care drives off a cliff, explodes, and crashes. I'd say he's dead.

Oof, those airbags will getcha if you’re not careful.

Larry stops by the hospital to get the test results on whatever Albanos ran to figure out what's wrong with Barb, but there are no files whatsoever, so there is a lot of yelling and carrying on.

So he ends up driving him to Soloman for answers. Larry sits in the back and watches as he performs one of his 'miracles'.

And y'know, if you want me to believe this faith healer, it is best to not have him perform THE BIGGEST SCAM OF FAITH HEALERS. And one I specifically know how the trick is done!!

Yeah, sure, they try and do it as 'real', and not him tricking someone, but it is still so frustrating and distracting.

There is just too much Saxon violence on tv these days.

Larry is suitably impressed, and Soloman wants to help, but not enough to actually go to the house and help. What a dick. Er, I mean, because as long as Babs stays there, she can’t be healed. I guess.

He urges Larry to leave, and he quickly heads home to try and convince Barb of doing the same. But she doesn't want to leave her nice house. Sigh. Fucking white people.

Alma doesn't take kindly to someone trying to take her new toy away, so she tries to crash some construction supplies down on Larry's head. She misses, killing someone else, so that's a pretty shit spirit, if you ask me.

That devil's back playing on the stairs again!

Larry sends Del out to the house to tell Barbara, so she doesn't hear about any accidents and think the worst.

We get some more info about their past together, before Alma takes over, they start heavily making out. Like, Almarbara is pretty aggressive.

Del, to his credit, fights his worst nature, but it all ends with him being flung off the balcony.

Larry finally returns home later that night, and Babs has no recollection of Del's visit, or his murder. And of course no one can find him the next day, as Larry drives to work and back.

I really haven’t mentioned how weirdly edited this movie is, with an occasional disjointed feel of 10 second scenes that are little more than going in circles.

He comes back home, finds Babs about to shove her hand into the fire, and he's getting just a bit worried at this point.

The next day, he visits "Doctor' Soloman, to discuss Babs' swollen ring finger, and he explains it's a sign of her body trying to fight off the 'infection'.

I am fire made flesh. Now and forever, I am the Dark Phoenix.

Finally, the pain and swelling are actually enough to make Babs accept going to the "doctor", and they rush to see him.

While they drive off, Soloman's daughter breaks into the house, after the "doctor" said he wishes they could distract Alma, to give them a chance.

She wanders the house trying to find the spirit and fight it, to give Barbara a better chance of escaping the possession, and eventually finds Alma upstairs.

The daughter waves her sage around, and the spirit shows herself to fight her off and get back to focusing on Babs.

All of this affects Barbara, causing her pain, as the spirit fights between two choices, trying to hold on to her new toy, and fight off the interloper.

The spirit blasts the woman with her green eyes of doom, setting fires to a few things, and eventually turning the “doctor’s” daughter to a pile of ash.

Excuse me, those are actually beams of concussive force, and NOT lasers, they don’t generate heat!!

Barbara and Larry go in to the hut while Soloman does another “miracle”, and she is absolutely horrified by the operation.

Kind of a weird position for this Karen to be in, that she doesn’t trust doctors while also finding this more homeopathic option they’re usually cool with as “barbaric”

I mean, she’s RIGHT, they just usually go in for this level of woo.

Your wife is glowing green, there must be quacks nearby!

The couple heads home and that night, the whisperers in the walls wake up Larry. I hate when the voices in my house keep me up at night.

After Larry finding Barbara being creepy and weird in the dining room, the next day, local kids find Del splatted on the ground.

Eventually, Larry ends up back at Soloman’s, and the two head to Casa Fortuna, aiming to destroy the crypt, because that’s the only access Alma has to our world.

So they bomb the shit out of Alma’s crypt, and gasp, shock, instead of ending this, that just sets her truly free.

In all this, Barb’s wedding ring falls off, signifying her domination by Alma, and Soloman surmises if they can get it back on her finger, it will end this.

Dude. Your last idea didn’t pan out so well, so I don’t know how much stock I put in your theories at this point. Being a faith healer is not helping your reputation.

The “doctor” tries to do the ring thing, but he gets flung out the window to say hello to Del.

Larry takes his try, and putting the ring on is a nice mirroring of a typical proposal, if a bit more thrashy and violent.

Once the ring is in place, the spirit gives up Barbara’s body, but for some reason, Alma suddenly has form, because who needs rules?

But it doesn’t last, as she tries to attack Larry, and very rapidly ages to skeleton, then dust, and beyond, on the floor.

With the witch dessicated to nothing, the couple beat feet and drive off into the sunset, burning the devil doll on their way out for good measure.

In brightest day, in blackest night, Beyond Evil is what we watched tonight.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video and Audio: Absolutely solid, as one comes to expect from Vinegar Syndrome.

Sound Bite: "Sure you're not afraid of ghosts?" "Are you kidding me? At these prices?"

Body Count: A pretty average amount, so I can’t complain.

1 - 23:30 and Alma is poisoned and cracked over the head.

2 - Alma snaps her husband's neck

3 - Doctor Albanos dies when his car is ripped apart, explodes, and flies off a ridge.

4 - Construction worker gets crushed

5 - Del gets pushed off the balcony

6 - Doctor Solomon flung out the window

Best Corpse: This has to go to Albanos, whose car is peeled like a grape, explodes in his face and THEN goes off a cliff.

Blood Type - D: There’s a surprising lack of blood in this. There’s a bit, but it’s all pretty tame, the special effects aren’t really anything too great, and the single stand out scene is the melting Alma, which is nicely done.

Sex Appeal: Shirtless John Saxon.

Drink Up! Every time Del says he’s got it covered, or something to that effect.

Movie Review: I really enjoyed my time with this. John Saxon is almost worth the price of admission alone in most movies, and it’s a real treat, as I said earlier, to see him playing a normal nice guy. The plot is solid, and aside from the padding with the construction job plotline that goes exactly nowhere, it’s servicable enough. The evil is palpable and slowly builds nicely, and even if the effects are pretty basic, it’s got it’s own sort of vision that works for it. It’s not quite unique enough to really stand out, but stumbling upon it, you have a good enough time. Three out of five magically lit candles.

Entertainment Value: I so wish the camp factor was a little higher in this. It scratches up against it at some points, Alma is wonderfully hissy in the final act, but if this had gone full camp, that would have helped the movie stand out more. Coupled with the bloated plot, it really ends up not being super entertaining, but a solid enough story. If the story was tightened up, and they really went for the full camp, it would be something. But I’ll give it a two out of five devil dolls, but it’s a solid enough movie and definitely worth a watch.

As for my trilogy, it has some nice visual similarities I pointed out throughout the review, like the floating through gassy areas, and the dolls. But there’s also a thematic link with the two movies about the seduction towards evil, trust between lovers, and sure I may be stretching here, but I could definitely double feature this with Devil’s Hand, and they would go quite well together, I think.