There have been a few delays and push backs, but Grindhouse's new blu-ray special edition set of
Lucio Fulci's
The Beyond has finally reached my doorstep. But it's been worth it, because you know what they say about rushing greatness. Grindhouse originally released this on DVD through Anchor Bay in a very cool, special edition collector's tin in 2000. But now, fifteen years later, it's time to see how they've topped themselves.
Update 3/31/15 - 4/30/25: Wow, my first update to span a full decade. I can't believe I've been at this that long already; it doesn't feel like it. Anyway, y'all know what this is; we're taking a look at Grindhouse's new 4k restoration 6-disc UHD/ BD/ DVD/ CD mega-set.
The Beyond, of course, is pretty much THE Lucio Fulci film. I mean, hardcore zombie or giallo fans might prefer
Zombi or
Don't Torture a Duckling. And serious long-term fans who've watched all his classics a dozen or more times might have slowly edged
City Of the Living Dead up over this through the years. But by and large,
The Beyond is generally considered his masterpiece. Set in New Orleans, the plot is practically indescribable. Hell just literally breaks loose and every horrific supernatural thing that can go wrong does go wrong, from spider attacks to psychics to zombies. It's very gruesome and thankfully takes itself entirely seriously; but it's still got a very colorful, fantastic tone that gives the proceedings a soft, inoffensive edge. It's just great music and great lighting capturing one captivating set-piece after another. And giving this film almost an action here with
David Warbeck gives the film a bit of adventure film flavor. It's pretty much the ultimate.
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1) 2000 Grindhouse DVD; 2) 2011 Arrow DVD; 3) 2015 Grindhouse BD;
4) 2025 Grindhouse BD; 5) 2025 Grindhouse UHD; 6) 2025 Grindhouse DVD. |
The 2.32:1 anamorphic DVD looked pretty fantastic when it was released in 2000, but as time passed and technology improved, it was starting to look a little stiff. There's no denying us fans were hoping for a new 2k or 4k scan in 2015, since it's pretty much the crown jewel in Grindhouse's catalog. But even using the old HD master, their first blu showed us how much better the film could look. A color re-balance certainly helps a lot here, but it's just a cleaner, more natural and detailed image all around. With a wider, 2.41:1 AR, we also seem to have a little extra picture information on all four sides. Oh, and Arrow's 2.35:1 DVD (which, for the record, is the corrected version, not the original
recalled one with the black & white intro) leans more towards the red, closer to Anchor Bay, but milder, and keeps that extra info around the edges.
On this new 4k version, which you can watch with the intro properly sepia-toned or in full color, Grindhouse has settled on 2.39:1, and it's clearly the most colorful version. Even if we just compare the 1080p blus, rather than the Dolby Vision/ HDR UHD,
The Beyond has a bolder, more saturated look. Just look how blue that morgue is now. Grain is much better captured here than on the old blu, which was far ahead of the DVDs, but still somewhat patchy and pixelated. Also, just for fun, and perhaps to show off how impressive their new restoration is by comparison, Grindhouse has included an SD/ DVD transfer of the
7 Doors of Death cut, too. It's 1.50:1, with the sides lopped off. Even for DVD, it's soft, with grain only represented by vague lumpiness, and presumably taken from an old tape master, with color timing closest to the AB disc. It's a fun curiosity piece. But the UHD is gorgeous.
A lot of times, Italian horror has been given to us in English dub only, and we had to wait for fancier re-releases to get our choice of the English or Italian tracks. But Anchor Bay gave us both right away, including the original English mono, a stereo and a 5.1 mix, plus the Italian mono with optional English subtitles. What can I say,
The Beyond's always been recognized as special. Interestingly, Arrow kept all three versions of the English audio, and the subs, but ditched the Italian track.
In 2015, Grindhouse brought it back, bumping up the English mono and 5.1 mixes to DTS-HD, but keeping the Italian lossy. There was also
some discussion on the blu-ray.com forums of little pops in
the audio of the original English mono track. I've listened for myself
and yup, I do hear them. And I can also confirm that they're not there
on Anchor Bay's mono track. It's a little disappointing, and I do wish they
weren't there; but it feels very minor especially within the context of
the audio track generally feeling much fuller and stronger overall. And anyway, it's been cleaned up on the new 2025 set, so forget about it! Now we have the original mono, stereo, 5.1 and Italian mono all in DTS-HD, and the English subtitles. Some online listings mention two sets of English subs - standard and SDH - but the SDH are not actually on here. It's just the one set of "dubtitles" that match the English audio, plus subtitle tracks for two of the audio commentaries.
...And perhaps most notably (although I don't want to under0state just how excited I am to finally get both mono tracks lossless), Grindhouse has included The Composer's Cut! Strictly speaking, it's the same cut of the film, but it's been entirely re-scored by original composer
Fabio Frizzi with all new music. It's a little calmer and more noodley - I prefer the original myself - but it's interesting to hear the variations. Fans should be excited to at least check it out once. And Grindhouse gives us the best of both worlds, because we get the choice, with the new track also in DTS-HD 5.1.
But let's talk about extras! If you weren't already bowled over by
Grindhouse's updated presentation of the film itself, you certainly will
be by the massive amount and quality of features they've delivered.
There's so much, in fact, I've decided to itemize everything on the
original DVD and each subsequent set:
Anchor Bay DVD extras:
- Commentary by David Warbeck and Catriona MacColl
- Images From the Beyond: a collection of stills galleries
(less interesting) and video (more interesting), including a short
interview with Fulci, a short clip of David Warbeck and Catriona MacColl
at a convention, Darvid Warbeck speaking at a convention, and Lucio and
Warbeck doing a Q&A
- US, International and German trailers
- The opening sequence in color
- Necrophagia music video
- Easter Eggs) 7 Doors of Death trailer and a trailer for Cat In the Brain
(there also seems to be another highlight-able link for a third easter
egg on the second page of special features that doesn't actually work)
Grindhouse BD extras:
- Commentary by David Warbeck and Catriona MacColl
- Intro by Catriona MacColl
- 48 minute documentary on the making of The Beyond
- A 2-part phone interview with Fulci
- Interview with Larry Ray
- Interview with Catrina MacColl
- Interview with Cinzea Monreale
- Interview with Gianetto De Rossi and Manrizio Trani
- Footage of Catriona MacColl speaking at a convention
- Footage of David Warbeck speaking at a convention
- Interview with Terry Levene
- The opening sequence in color
- US, International and German trailers + US rerelease trailer
- US TV spots
- US re-release radio spot
- An overwhelming number of stills galleries
- 14 bonus trailers for Grindhouse's other titles
- Easter Eggs: the full set of Images From the Beyond extras (some of which are duplicated on disc 2 of this blu as well), a series of brief interviews (23 minutes worth) from Paura, the 7 Doors of Death trailer, a 10+ minute audio track of whispering and moaning(?), the Necrophagia music video, and a brief but nice featurette comparing location shots from the films to footage of them as they look now
Grindhouse UHD extras:- Commentary by David Warbeck and Catriona MacColl
- Commentary by Sergio Salvati
- Commentary by Gianetto De Rossi
- Intro by Catriona MacColl
- Intro to the Composer's Cut by Fabio Frizzi
- Interview with scholar/ director of Fulci for Fake Simone Scafidi (over an hour long!)
- Interview with Fabio Frizzi about the new Composer's Cut
- Footage of Frizzi and his band performing the Composer's Cut live, with an introduction by Bruce Campbell(!)
- 48 minute documentary on the making of The Beyond
- A 2-part phone interview with Fulci
- Interview with Larry Ray
- Interview with Al Cliver
- Interview with Catrina MacColl
- Interview with Cinzea Monreale
- Newer interview with Cinzea Monreale
- Interview with Michele Mirabella
- Interview with Dardano Sacchetti
- Interview with Giorgo Mariuzzo
- Interview with stuntmen Ottaviano Dell'Acqua & Massimo Vanni
- Interview with Ugo Celani
- Ugo Celani outtake
- Interview with Pino Colizzi
- Interview with Michele Romagnoli
- Interview with Emanuele Taglietti
- Interview with Gianetto De Rossi and Manrizio Trani
- Footage of Catriona MacColl speaking at a convention
- Footage of David Warbeck speaking at a convention
- Footage of Catriona MacColl and David Warbeck speaking together at a convention
- Footage of Lucio Fulci and David Warbeck speaking at a convention (a separate, 46 minute video, not the short one from Images From the Beyond)
- Brief footage of Catriona MacColl and David Warbeck at yet another a convention
- Interview with Terry Levene
- The Beyond In the Age of Aquarius, a new 40-minute featurette talking to Terry Levene and editor Jim Markovic on the 7 Doors of Death cut
- Terry Levene outtake
- Jim Markovic outtake
- US, International and German trailers + US rerelease trailer
- US TV spots
- US re-release radio spot
- More 7 Doors of Death spots
- An overwhelming number of stills galleries
- The bonus trailers for Grindhouse's other titles
- All the old Easter Eggs: the full set of Images From the Beyond extras, the interviews from Paura, the 7 Doors of Death
trailer, that 10+ minute audio track of whispering and moaning (yes,
it's back), the Necrophagia music video, and the location featurette
Everything in
purple is new to the blu-ray and everything in
red is
new to the UHD. That is an increasingly massive and impressive load of
features. You might even say overwhelming. Many of the interviews are
quite lengthy and they're all substantial. Grindhouse has linked up with
Freak-O-Rama, who've done a bunch of excellent features for high
profile Italian horror titles from Scorpion and Code Red, among others.
And you might recall that UK's Shameless Screen Entertainment released a
blu-ray of
The Beyond in 2020 with a bunch of exclusive extras,
including a Salvati commentary (actually recorded for a French DVD back in 2004, but Shameless were the first to translate it to English) and an interview with actor Michele
Mirabella, who had never been on a
Beyond disc before. Well,
Grindhouse licensed those and they're all here on the new 2025 set. The
only extras of note they didn't snag are Arrow's, so let's look at
those.
Arrow DVD extras:
- Commentary by David Warbeck and Catriona MacColl
- A second commentary by Antonella Fulci (Fulci's daughter) and moderator Callum Waddell, which I'd recommend to hardcore fans only.
- Intro by Cinzea Monreale
- Interview with Cinzea Monreale
- Q&A session with Catriona MacColl
- Interview with Terry Levene (perhaps it's worth noting that Grindhouse trimmed over a minute out of Naomi Holwill's opening animation, so theirs is technically shorter, though the actual interview length is the same)
- Interview with Gianetto Di Rossi
- 25 minute featurette where Roberto Forges Davanzati, Daria Nicolodi, Antonella Fulci, Dario Argento, Giannetto De Rossi and Sergio Stivaletti remember Fulci (not the same as the one on GH's disc; this set of different interviews purports to come from a future Paura part 2).
- Interview with Catriona MacColl
- The opening sequence in color
- International trailer
- Easter Egg: Darren Ward remembering David Warbeck - a brief (4+ minutes) interview with the director of Warbeck's final film, Sudden Fury
Their collection is pretty impressive in its own right. Some of what's
here stems from the old Anchor Bay release, and a little of what
originated here got ported to the Grindhouse set. But still everything
in
blue is exclusive to
the Arrow release, which as you can see, is most of it. Admittedly, some
of it is pretty redundant. Both discs interview Cinzae Monreale, for
example, the actress who played the blind woman. They're different
interviews, filmed at different times in different locations; but
naturally she winds up saying most of the same stuff in both. You'll
hear some of the same anecdotes almost word for word from Catriona
MacColl - her stuff was already getting redundant on the Grindhouse
disc, now it's more. But other features, like the exclusive interviews
with cameraman Roberto Forges Davanzati or the Darren Ward easter egg,
are more original and rewarding even if you've already got the
Grindhouse set.
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Here's how it looks in the dark. |
And usually I don't devote too much space to the packaging, but how can I
not here? The original DVD release came in a very cool tin case.
Inside, it also had six international poster replicas and a chapter
insert of cardstock, and a fat, 48-page booklet. And it was a numbered
limited edition of 20,000 copies. Holy cow, it's crazy to think 20,000
was a tight limited pressing in the days of Twilight Time making 3000 of
even their Oscar-winning titles, and Code Red still shifting units of a
blu they only made 1000 editions of two years prior.
Anyway, it might seem hard to top that DVD tin, but I think Grindhouse
at least equaled it. Their blu-ray set comes in a very cool, glow in the
dark slipcover. You've gotta charge it up under some strong light; but
when you do, it looks pretty great. It also comes with a slimmer booklet
and a bonus CD of the film's soundtrack, which has also been
remastered. That's something a lot of fans would pay the cost of this
blu for all on its own.
Meanwhile, the Arrow set comes in their usual (in those days) windowpane slipcover with reversible
artwork inside, a substantial, 32-page blu-ray sized booklet and a
fold-out poster.
And now Grindhouse's UHD set is a thick,
side-loading slipbox housing a fancy book designed to resemble the book
of Eibon, which looks really cool, but unfortunately houses all the
discs in cardboard sleeve pages. Pray you don't get any scratched!
Anyway, there's also a 100-page full-color book, which includes multiple
essays and gallery pages, but also Sacchetti's complete, original
treatment. And they include another soundtrack CD, this time of the
new Composer's Cut score (hang on to your previous soundtrack CD for
the original score, which thankfully came in its own separate sleeve, so
you can just slot it into this box). And if you ordered one of the
first 3,500 copies direct from
Grindhouse you got a fun bit of swag: the Eye of Eibon(!), a creepy
little
eyeball that always looks up no matter how you turn it.
The new set's a little pricey ($66.66), but with all its versions (with the intro in color or sepia, the Composer's Cut, your choice of English or Italian, the
7 Doors of Death cut), this massive 6-disc set
looks like it'll be the definitive release of this true horror classic
for a long time to come. And you can't say it doesn't include enough
content to justify the expense. Before the update, I used to recommend
picking up the Arrow, too, for their exclusive extras; and you still might
want to if you're a die-hard collector, or the sort of hardcore fan who
has the mark of Eibon tattooed somewhere on your body. But at this
point, Grindhouse's edition is so exhaustive, it would take the dedication of a druidic scholar to come away from it wanting to watch any more
special features.
