88 Films peers BEYOND DARKNESS with their Blu-ray of this Italian oddity.

Reverend George (David Brandon, STAGEFRIGHT) ventures BEYOND DARKNESS when he goes to take the confession and administer last rites to condemned child murderess Bette (Mary Coulson, Lucio Fulci's DOOR TO SILENCE), but she is not only unrepentant since she has devoured the souls of her victims to take to hell with her to her god Ameth. He believes her to be mentally ill until he sees the spirits of her victims after her "final orgasm" in the electric chair and leaves the church a broken man. One year later, George's replacement Reverend Peter (METAMORPHOSIS' Lebrock) moves into a fog-shrouded Louisiana mansion with his wife Annie (Barbara Bingham, THE OCTAGON), son Martin (TROLL 2's Michael Stephenson) and daughter Carole (Theresa Walker). No sooner have they said grace at their first dinner than they are experience power outages, moving objects, chanting voices, and desecrated Bibles. Martin is creeped out by a black swan rocking toy that moves on its own while Carole is drawn towards a glowing hole in the closet that seems to be a portal to another dimension. When Peter confides his troubles to his superior Reverend Jonathan (METAMORPHOSIS' Brown), he learns that the older man has appointed him not only a replacement to administer to George's parishioners but in his specialization as an exorcist to purify the house which was the sight of a mass witch burning. What he does not realize until too late is that Bette has come back from the beyond with those witches and is after his children. George tries to recover his faith to help Peter save his family, but he may just be on his way to his own meeting with Ameth and reunion in hell with Bette.

Reusing Carlo Maria Cordio's cues for WITCHERY and KILLING BIRDS (as well as the house from THE BEYOND recycled in the latter film), and throwing together a plot from elements several years too late to cash in on POLTERGEIST, THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, and THE EXORCIST, BEYOND DARKNESS is the least interesting of the three LA CASA unofficial sequels to THE EVIL DEAD and EVIL DEAD 2 (which were released in Italy as LA CASA) following Umberto Lenzi's LA CASA 3 which was released here as GHOSTHOUSE and LA CASA 4, released here as WITCHERY. Producer Joe D'Amato's cinematography is generally slick and intermittently striking, but the plotting is as flat as the spook show theatrics. The leads try but are bland, and the only performer with any true conviction in the film is Brandon who reportedly did his scene of public drunkenness harassing passersby without a permit and the filmmakers shooting out of sight with a telephoto lens (it is his performance in his death scene combined with the stirring organ cue from KILLING BIRDS that are most successful in wringing out emotion). Stick with the first two films for more grue and more entertaining absurdity.

Released direct-to-video stateside by Imperial Entertainment and not at all in the U.K., BEYOND DARKNESS only had DVD releases in France and Italy, neither of which were English-friendly. The film made its Blu-ray debut from Scream Factory in a double feature with METAMORPHOSIS featuring a so-so 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.66:1 widescreen transfer, a combination of the master and D'Amato's heavily diffused and backlit photography. The same master appears on 88 Films' Blu-ray looking no better or worse while the English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track has noticeable hiss. Optional English HoH subtitles are included.