User reviews

From the director of "Troll 2" comes this moderately amusing haunted house / exorcism movie. Gene Lebrock ("Metamorphosis") stars as Father Peter, a reverend who moves with his family into a house of horrors. Not surprisingly, terrible things happened on the same grounds many years ago, and Father Peter must team up with the intense Father George (David Brandon) to take on the forces of evil and save his son Martin (who's played by Michael Stephenson, a.k.a. the young hero of "Troll 2").

Flagrantly bad acting combines with director Claudio Fragassos' extravagant efforts to show the audience a good time. Fragasso gives this silly movie as much atmosphere as he possibly can, but the screenplay, which he wrote with Rossella Drudi, is pretty inane. The music score by Carlo Maria Cordio is over the top, which seems like an attempt to distract the audience from the fact that we're not seeing anything particularly interesting or unusual in this movie. The visual effects are variable, the makeup effects not that bad at all.

The hunky Lebrock is very much a stiff, but "Friday the 13th" series fans might enjoy seeing actress Barbara Bingham (Mrs. Van Deusen in "Jason Takes Manhattan") in the role of his wife. Brandon does an awful lot of gnawing on the scenery. One person who looks like they're having fun is Mary Coulson, who plays the gnarly old crone Bette.

One of the producers was an uncredited Joe D'Amato; the costume designer was Laura Gemser.

Five out of 10.

There's a reason why this claims to be a part of a series it's not: no one would watch it otherwise!

A collared priest enters a prison to give last rites to a middle aged female serial killer. Somehow she's stolen a number of stout children's souls, and the priest can see them. He's somehow affected by her evil holy book, which has a picture of Satan and a house in it that look much more recent than all the other pages. He turns into an alcoholic who staggers around town. Apparently he is possessed and also having a crisis of faith.

Anyway, another collared priest moves into the house from the book because an older priest gave it to him for him and his family of four. There's a strange giant black swan rocker in the children's room they assume was a gift for the kids. One of the doors has a poorly- bricked and stuccoed wall behind it with a slit that glows. Obviously supernatural bad stuff starts happening soon, but the family for some reason stays. Turns out the older priest knew that the entire family would be in danger, but he thought it would be a good idea anyway for some reason.

The movie is filled with terrible editing, terrible dialogue, and terrible plotting. The special effects aren't so good, mainly the house being full of smoke and red light as the cast has sweaty faces. There's a bunch of somewhat spooky zombie witches. A mixture of witches and innocent women had been burned at the stake on the site years ago. What the connection is to the serial killer is anyone's guess.

It's a poor mix of The Amityville Horror (haunted house), The Exorcist (exorcists, possession and crisis of faith), and Poltergeist (child taken into other world, stuff flying around). Don't bother! Who would actually believe this as a sequel to Evil Dead?

Explanation for this title. Evil Dead was La Casa in Italy. Then, Evil Dead II was La Casa 2. But, Ghosthouse, from Umberto Lenzi, was La Casa 3. Witchery, from Fabrizio Laurenti was La Casa 4. And this, the fifth.

Without a doubt, this low-budget haunted house thriller pales in comparison to genre classics such as Poltergeist due to horrendous acting and a pervading student film feel. However, if you enjoyed the Amityville Horror movie and book (especially the book) you might want to give Beyond Darkness a try. Many of the most terrifying aspects of the Amityville book are an integral part of this movie including hooded entities lunging at the cast out of nowhere, doorways to hell, and some unforgettable scenes of inanimate objects like an antique radio becoming possessed by the dark forces in the house. Yes it's true that the portrayal of the family is perhaps too clean cut (I know for a fact that pastors' kids can sometimes be brattier than other people's!) and that the actress playing the executed serial killer is more than a little wan. However, if you don't expect Oscar winning performances in horror films, then you will find Beyond Darkness a creepy treat to watch alone on a stormy night. And before inserting the tape, you might want to turn off the radio first.

"La Casa 5"/"Beyond Darkness" is another lamentable horror film from Claudio Fragasso,the man behind incredibly awful "Troll 2"(1990).The plot is simple:a priest(Gene Le Brock)and his family move into new house.Unfortunately the house was built over the place where twenty witches were burnt at the stake.Soon the terror begins..."La Casa 5" is a typical Italian possessed house horror which owes a lot to "The Amityville Horror"(1979).The script is mediocre,the acting is horrible and there is absolutely no gore.The special effects are also pretty bad including a possessed radio and flying cleaver.The film is not as painful as "Troll 2",but it's close.Skip it.My rating:4 out of 10.

Beyond Darkness is a b horror picture about a haunted house. It's Poltergeist meets The Exorcist.

A reverend and his unsuspecting family move into a house with mysterious supernatural symptoms. Even more mysterious was why a married Protestant minister was a part of the Catholic Church, but these are details, just a minor technicality! The creepy ambient music was doled out with a heavy hand and it worked. The special effects were on point, and the tone was camp-free.

The acting was what you would want to see in this type of story. The hag and the Catholic exorcist killed it. The minister and his wife, not so much. The writing didn't make a whole lot of sense. It could have used more development, such as the backstory about the property being built on the sight of a mass witch lynching. The opening scene more than made up for the gaps in the narrative logic. Beyond Darkness is nobody's classic, but it delivers.

Well, I'm not going to talk much about that movie, cause I agree in most point with the comment by Zantara, but I just had another thing concerning the Title. &The original title "La Casa 5" an the american subtitle just can't beat the german title "Horror House 2". I never saw a movie called "Horror House" in any video-tape library or on TV an no german homepage knows the first part. So if you think calling it House 5 is ridiculous, nope, german video producers beat that by far.

House five, is not the continuation of the other houses. House five, extension for the first time a true fact of property, recognized from the sacred Roman church. The history is draft from the book " the 100 cases of demonic property recognized from the Holy Roman Church of father "Malachia" For the first time in a property film, the splitting of the two children is looked at entirety, l' real spirit and that possessed. An exchange of the two children happens, with the parents and its family goes that mistaking. The child will be saved with exorcism, from a priest who had lost the faith, tormented and scared, from the demon and now, alcoholic victim . This priest will return to the faith, during l' exorcism. It had lost the faith in order to have confessed a modern witch, condemned to the capital punishment on the chair electrical worker, in reality the woman was possessed from a demon between most frightful: Ameth, that it eats the spirits of the children in order to become stronger. (it is in the Bible) to the history appeals to me so much, for the depth. The film is to low cost, but the special effects beautiful because are made as years were made ago, when the computer did not exist. The film is of 1990 and task that would have to be praised who little succeeds with money to make a film that however it scares, thanks to the many ideas of the script and to a good direction. Task is easy to make good films when many money is had. The scene that it has hit to me more, is that of little the child, that it dreams to wake up sluice in a coffin, where, the family sees dead to it, but it is alive, she screams, and she screams, but she feels it to nobody, then encircle it to the witches, making them a magical deceit, in order to steal them spirit. The witches are devout people to Ameth. Much fear and much Gore. The Louisiana still renders more l' atmosphere. To see and to appreciate also for the suspense in the long, from the taste of the past, without those movements of movie-cam, too much fast times and you deprive of sense, within the history and in the turned scene, only used for giving rhythm, to case. The atmospheres thriller the fear, manifest in the waits. For this ballot 10/10. To revalue

This movie is a little bit stupid. But that is one of its best qualities. Acting ain't great. Special effects even worse (OK, they're better than SOME of the actors).

I couldn't get over David Brandon (Caligula in http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082133/?ref_=nm_flmg_dr_152) playing a priest. He may be a drunk, but still a man of the cloth. I still can't make it through Caligula 2: The Untold Story in one sitting. It is not only kind of mean-spirited, but actually gross.

I got this on X-Rated (German video label, not MPAA) DVD in a fat box (große hartbox) and the box/case is actually a whole lot better than the film. Way better, as a matter of fact. It's called "Ghost House 6" on the box. Pretty sure it's called "Beyond Darkness" in the credits.

This is the last in the Casa franchise and it surely shows why. this is really a turkey but somehow you keep watching to see what happens next. It's even so worse that the last shot just before the end credits aren't correct, you know what should happen but don't worry, if you wait until the end credits are over your wish will come true. The acting is so over the top, really wooden and normally flicks with haunted children should be scary but here it's just laughable. Nevertheless, all imaginable effects are used. Mostly the very cheap ones, scary, sigh, lights and smoke, an annoying score, bad make-up. Really, a must see to believe but that's the problem, it hasn't had a proper release and is only available on VHS. It was made in 1990 so for the effects available then this is really a turkey. And each time you think, ahaa the end is coming something new happens. And still I'm glad that I have seen it...

It's obvious...and by watching some of the extras on some of his poopy re-release films from severin's library and so on...that this director is insanely jealous of American filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola. He continuously bashes American filmmakers. Why????? Apocalypse now was one of the best films ever??? And he couldn't bare it??? Get over it. I love classic Italian and European films from the 1940s to the late 1980s. But this amateur and his pesky porker 300lb wife are not in my top 10. Mario bava..Riccardo Freda...Umberto Lenzi..Ruggero Deodato...Federico Fellini...Sergio Martino...are the real filmmakers are legendary icons of Italian cinema.....and even Matteo Garrone gets thrown in the mix...including Carlos Aured...and classic spaghetti western legendary filmmakers such as Sergio corbucci...Sergio sollima...Giulio questi etc.but downing filmmakers from a different continent doesn't make you a respectful filmmaker...considering some of his films are awful and cheap...and cheezy in a very bad way .. I saw (or attempted) to watch some of this man's films and they were so bad I literally gave em away to second hand shops like half price books and the exchange with no expectations of getting a good trade in value...zombie 4 is about the only film I will own from this.mess of a filmmaker. If you disagree with me that's ok..but I stick with my opinion of this atrocious piece of fecal matter. Cheers!!!!!!

Fun little film that seems to combine The Amityville Horror and Poltergeis , tie in a little of The Exorcists and you've got the plot. If you're into a lot of gore then this one probably isn't for you but worth a watch if nothing else is around. 5/10

After moving into a new house, a priest and his family find themselves terrorized by a series of strange supernatural phenomenon that points to the house being haunted by a malevolent demon seeking human souls to deliver to a Satanic entity and turns to a disgruntled colleague to save his family.

This here wasn't too bad of a haunted house effort. That's one of the most intriguing aspects here as the film wastes no time setting up this facet in the first half. Almost immediately after moving in, the daughters' displays of supernatural happenings give this a great introduction to the kind of wild affair to the later haunting scenes. Not only running through the usual trappings of toying with lights, sudden outbursts of wind blowing through windows or wreaking havoc with electronics and household utensils but also scalding their faces or causing dreams where they appear as demonic brides attempting to lure the family away. That leads nicely into the film's stellar supernatural action scenes. The first encounter with the demonic brides appearing out of the walls and chasing them through the house features several chilling scenes of the mass of creatures through the fog before being driven away, while the later sequence where they return to chase the children eventually taking one of them to their world offers the creepiest moments in the film. The finale, where the two priests come together to battle the main figure, really generates plenty of wild action as the religious confrontations for why they're fighting lead into their non-stop battles. Featuring the exorcism of the son, the battle with the female demon and spectacular burning-down-the-house conclusion, the wildness here comes through nicely while also giving this one the chance for atmospheric touches and some ghastly ghoul make-up on the creatures. These are what hold the film up as there are a few flaws here. Among the biggest issues here are the completely nonsensical ideas that are peppered throughout the film. The whole connection between the executed woman and the events at the house are never given as she's never responsible for what was said to be responsible in the house or why the house was possessed in the first place. It's also quite short on why the family was there as it seemed there was a purpose in them being brought in but as for why nothing was done with the house until they moved in is incredibly strange and confusing. That leads to the other problematic issue here where the film feels somewhat overlong not through pacing but continuous action. The finale is especially guilty of this, ranging from the possession and exorcism of the kid to the temptation of the fallen priest and finally having the older reluctant priest coming into play to stop the demonic entity. Hardly any of these storylines come about with any kind of logical narrative build-up from what's going on before making for a somewhat overlong time here. Along with the films' cheesiness, these are what hold this one down.

Rated Unrated/R: Violence, intense themes of children-in-jeopardy and Language.

Claudio Fragasso's splatter movie reputation has improved exponentially over the years, not only due to the rabidly infectious, world-wide cult of Nilbog-obsessed 'Troll 2' fans, but the morbidly maggot-strewn mayhem of his splatter happy 'Zombie Flesh Eaters 3' remains a Fragasso highlight! For me, the blood-burnished, B-Movie jewel in maestro Fragasso's sublimely schlocky oeuvre is the demon-possessed, devilishly diabolical 1990s haunted house horror show 'Beyond Darkness'. A genre filmmaker usually disparaged for his rudimentary mise en scene, some trash movie fans may balk at Fragasso's relative cinematic competency as he luridly puts handsome padre (Gene LeBrock), and his young family through their ghastly poltergeist paces!

After they excitedly move into their isolated country abode, ill omened manifestations begin to darkly disrupt their bucolic idyll. Garishly tormented by illuminated netherworld portals, disorientated by spectral, sigil-shrilling radio transmissions, this beleaguered family experiences a terror tumult of legitimately biblical proportions! The goodly, and, perhaps, no longer godly, Father George's (David Brandon) courageous attempts to banish these witchy wraiths concludes in a ghoulishly tempestuous smoke-lashed 80s pop video exorcism! Sympathetically acted by, Gene LeBrock, his fresh-faced amiability is starkly contrasted by the energetically dissipated turn by Euro-cult hero, David Brandon! Last, but by no means least, music maestro, Carlo Maria Cordio provides yet another lively, spine-tinglingly splendid score.