BEYOND, THE (1981)

A young woman from New York named Liza (Katherine MacColl) inherits a Louisiana motel that has been unoccupied for nearly 60 years. While restoring the old building, many of the workers meet mysterious and untimely deaths, each more ill-fated than the next. Furthermore, Liza is visited by a blind specter named Emily (Sarah Keller) who lectures from a 4,000-year-old book of collected prophecies that explains the motel is situated above one of seven portals to hell. As her sanity dwindles, Liza finds some much-needed stability in a local doctor named John McCabe (David Warbeck), who is determined to find a rational explanation for the recent state of affairs.

Nevertheless, the protagonists are led through a maze of bizarre confrontations with beings beyond the realm of the living, and into an apocalyptic world of unknown horrors. The Beyondis at once the quintessential Lucio Fulci film and a staple in the overall Italian horror genre. The director's epic masterpiece is a blend of atmospheric surrealism and nightmarish visions (a grisly tarantula attack, flesh-melting acid spills, a softball-sized gun blast through the skull of a young zombified girl, and an eyeball impaling or two) that are definitely unsuitable for those with weak stomachs.