Hello, again my horror fam! I’m back with another sliver of personal insight on a film. This time, I had the opportunity to check out a fun foreign film titled BEYOND THE GRAVE from director Davi de Olveira Pinheiro.
The film takes place in a devastated post-apocalyptic world where the rules of reality are transformed by magic and madness where a vengeful police officer searches for a possessed serial killer in a battle of the not-so-good versus absolute evil.
Prior to viewing this, I think it’s important for you to know that this film is highly graphic and includes a lot of kick-ass violence (kick-ass being used as a term of endearment for those of us who are fans of violence). With that in mind, this is a film taking place in a post-apocalyptic world where violence is an everyday occurrence. One can only imagine being in that type of environment where fight or flight would constantly be in play.
Our primary lead is a man who is hunting for a serial killer that seems to possess black magic powers. He quickly encounters a young man and woman who have their own agenda to hunt someone who’s wronged them and they join forces. It’s not often that I find myself fully invested in a foreign film, the last one being The Glass Coffin. I can honestly say I’ve never seen a film from Brazil so this was definitely a treat for me. The ideas and elements for this film are a combined effort of already loved genres and they blend together incredibly well.
Although this film has a looming undertone of chaos, I felt a sense of positivity. There’s a message that says to make the best of your current situation and that “touched my soul” for lack of a better term. Things can always be worse, even despite living in a scorched earth type of realm; you may not always be stuck in a shitty situation alone. Another thing was the major theme on the importance of human interaction and how this truly does keep you, well, human.
Another aspect I found to be not only visually pleasing but fun as well, were the practical effects used throughout the film. As aforementioned, there’s a blending of different genres and zombies surely come into play in this melting pot of a world. There’s a great amount of gore which I also feel is important to mention because not everyone is into that sort of thing, although I’ve always been a huge fan of gratuitous gore.
I think the only downfall of this movie, for me, was the filming style at certain points. Although I understood what they were trying to do with strange skipping cutscenes during the reveals, I found that I was not a fan of that style. It was a bit unsettling for me visually and made it hard for me to focus. Fortunately, that effect is really short-lived and isn’t something that plays a major role in the editing of the film.
All in all, BEYOND THE GRAVE was very original and I had a fun time watching it. I think there’s something that will service fans of most ‘action-based’ genres. If you have the chance to check it out, don’t even bat an eye! The runtime is roughly an hour and thirty-seven minutes and the plot flies by quickly, so keep your eyes peeled and focused.
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