Beyond the Door
Warner Brothers sued the Italian production company behind Beyond the Door (1974) for what they considered to be a blatant rip-off of The Exorcist (1973). The case was settled in Warner Brothers' favor with the Italians forced to pay an undisclosed fee.,At approximately 6:06 in the beginning the child's shoes are shown, then a cut away to the child. Who is obviously too short, and human to bend and contort in the manner in which the camera suggests.,Jessica Barrett: [in a demonic voice] Whooooo aaare youuuuu?,The widescreen presentation under the title Devil Within Her, features almost 15 minutes of newer footage that was not shown in theaters. This includes the complete credits, a scene were Jessica meets Dimitri in the ritual grounds and a scene showing Jessica with Robert and her children shopping down San Francisco and seeing Dimitri.,Featured in Mad Ron's Prevues from Hell (1987),Bargain with the Devil
Music Composed and Conducted by Franco Micalizzi
Written by Sid Wayne
Performed by Warren Wilson
Produced by Danny Weis (as Danny Weiss),BEYOND THE DOOR definitely riffs on THE EXORCISTS, but has an entirely different feel. While THE EXORCIST took normal, banal moments or settings and injected them with a sense of dis-ease, BEYOND THE DOOR has a disturbed, dream-like feel to it. There isn't a single normal thing about this movie to lull viewers into safety or complacency. Juliet Mills' erratic, violent behavior, the montage-like exteriors as Mills shops in San Francisco and her husband visits the psychic are weirdly unsettling with no pretensions. Ditto for the sequences with the children and the glowing-eyed dolls. The scene in which Mills is trussed up in bed with electrodes attached to her scalp is almost unbearable to look at for Mills' creepy facial expression. I first viewed this when I was a sophomore in high school, watching it on an independent TV station late at night. The movie weirded me out like no film before it(until I saw ALICE SWEET ALICE)and was truly unsettling. Very symbolic, with attempts to convey concepts of evil through cinematic language. Interesting, if only for seeing a different interpretation of the demonic possession genre.,