Voices from Beyond (1991)

It took me few years to watch Voices from Beyond, not because I didn't want to see it, just because it didn't work on my shitty dvd-player. But nowdays a bluray-player shines in my livingroom, and I'm happy to say it played this dvd without any problem. Voices could almost have been the swan song of Lucio Fulci, but destiny made him do another movie, the okey Door to Silence. But if this movie had been his last, it would have sealed a great career in a very nice way.

A greedy man dies in pain in his hospital bed. He's coughing blood and won't survive the night. His family is waiting for him to die, so they can get rich. But the man dosen't day, not inside. His mind is still alive, and struggling to force someone to discover how he died. That one is his daughter, which slowly realises how everyone want's her father money. At the same time the spirit of the dead man is haunting the dreams of the family...

Voices from Beyond is a poetic revenge movie. It's beautifully shot, one of the most good looking Fulci-movies since Murder Rock. It's also seems like Fulci maybe had a little bit money, a little bit more time, to make this movie. The direction is very good and the camera compositions is up there among his best. Just look at the details, the shadow at the train or the camera movements during the funeral. It's a master at work. There's master touches all over the movie, even if it's far from perfect - but it's far from bad either. The actors do what they can do with cheesy dialogue, but turns out okey performances. The music is one of the best things. Very simple, almost meditative electronic stuff that fits very good to the dream-like quality of the movie.

When it comes to pure horror it's like a normal Fulci-movie: it's more about dread than dead. The atmosphere is thick and slow, and as usual no jump-scares. Just a feeling of something sick. Of course there's some gore: a nasty autopsy, a few gory knife-stabbings and a decomposing body. But it's quiet laid back compared to some of his other work. 

So, slim on story, but fat in depth and atmosphere. Fulci still shows us who could transform an ordinary italian tv-movie to something very special.