Desertman84 John Saxon and Lynda Day George team up in this horror flick made back in the 1980's.It is about an architect and his newly wed wife,Larry and Barbara who moves into a mansion that is apparently haunted.It is housed by a ghost named Alma Martin,who happens to be man-hating voodoo queen and who was apparently murdered in it.The couple unexpectedly find themselves needing to battle the ghost for many lives are at stake from the people of the island that they have gone to and their lives as well.It was obvious that the special effects were dated even at the time it was released due to being a lowly budgeted thriller in 1980.In fact,it became an unexpectedly a comedic film due to the effects used. But the cast and crew made the most of it and tried its best to be entertaining and horrifying as possible despite the limited success that they had in it.Although the film was obviously far from being it good,it just managed to be far from being disastrous due to its lovely couple - Saxon and Day George - who exuded lots of chemistry.

Aaron1375 This film does not seem like the Troma I am used to. Usually Troma films are filled with gore, nudity and all sorts of sleaze, while this one tries to have a serious story going and it also differs from most of their offerings in that it is boring. This could have been the sequel to the film "A Name for Evil" with Robert Culp as it plays a bit like that film only a bit more flashier. Still, it drags on and on with one inconsequential plot point after the other with the occasional tepid kill thrown in to remind you that you are still watching a horror film no matter how little horror is on the screen at any given time. This one also has a lot of the same plot elements of the film "Mausoleum" within it, only that film came after this one and it seemed to know it was a horror film as it had a whole heck of a lot going for it compared to this one which has one thing and one thing only going for it and that is John Saxon as the lead character.The story has an architect and his wife relocating to an island where the architect is helping to oversee the construction of some buildings. There is a buddy who is supposed to be getting an apartment ready for them, but he is instead getting them an awesome new house at an unbelievably low price. Turns out the place has a history and there is a lot of history with the characters, to much if you ask me. There is to many shady deals going down here which would be cool if it were the least bit relevant to the plot! Well the place is haunted by a woman who died in the place and practiced dark magic and so she shall try and take over the architect's wife in very slow and unspectacular fashion. There is a faith healer that warns our hero, but of course he does not believe in all that magic stuff. The filmmakers apparently did, painting faith healers as real, obviously this is before their little tricks were revealed to be nothing more than chicken livers.So you have a possession plot going on, so you probably want to know is it interesting? Well no, I said the film was boring and I meant it. The problem is they went to serious and the threw up a very weak horror film. The plot could be a possession plot on a soap opera it is so bland. It also feels very much like a television film, especially when the scene cuts out on a high musical note that sounded as if the film were about to go to commercial. So there is very little in the way of gore, nudity or general mayhem and the film is mainly people milling around and talking about stuff that is not relevant to the possession plot. This is a film that just screams gore and nudity and delivers not much in the way of either. So you hope the story is good, but it is just to crammed with stuff that just is not important.There is a good point to the film and that is John Saxon as the architect. If not for him I would have given the film a one, but he is an actor who stars in these b movie nightmares and can make them a bit more tolerable. I love the pointless scene in the hospital about the missing records where he punches a dude in the stomach. He does a good job and the lady portraying his wife has a nice chest, it is a shame they never showed it to us in all its glory as it would have been worth at least another point from me.So this film in the end is boring. Very much like another Troma film, "Zombie Island Massacre" in that it is set on an island and there is nothing that you expect within. I was expecting more, some good gore, perhaps lots of boobies. All I got were plot points that at times seemed to come from another movie entirely and a very slow moving possession film. You get deaths that are also suited for other films as they usually just had people falling or other things that just did not seem part of a horror film. Just disappointed all around with this one, I was not expecting this one to be really good, but I also was not expecting it to be boring either. Heck, it was beyond boring.

Woodyanders Architect Larry Andrews (the always reliable John Saxon) and his new bride Barbara (nicely played by the lovely Lynda Day George) move into a swanky palatial colonial mansion that's haunted by the lethal spirit of evil and vengeful witch Alma Martin (an effectively wicked portrayal by the ravishing Janice Lynde), who not surprisingly possesses Barbara's body so she can reenter our dimension. Director/co-writer Herb Freed manages to create a suitably spooky atmosphere and stages the sporadic supernatural murder set pieces with a reasonable amount of flair (the occasional use of slow motion is especially nifty), but alas the meandering script takes too long to get right down to business, the moderate sprinkling of gore is regrettably tepid stuff, the editing tends to be slapdash, the narrative is sometimes very muddled and incoherent, and , worst of all, the hopelessly cheap and cheesy (far from) special effects are often downright laughable in their jaw-dropping Day-Glo dimestore tackiness. The cast do their best with the blah material: Saxon and George make for appealing and attractive leads, with sturdy support from Michael Dante as smooth heel Del Giorgio, Mario Milano as suave physician Dr. Frank Albanos, and David Opatoshu as helpful faith healer Dr. Solomon. Ken Plotin's pretty cinematography offers several sumptuous shots of the gorgeously scenic sylvan locations. Pino Donaggio provides a supremely eerie and elegant score which gives this rather shoddy picture some much-needed class. A merely passable timewaster.

Ryne Barber Beyond Evil was directed by Herb Freed (you might know him from Graduation Day) and stars John Saxon as Larry Andrews, a construction worker or contractor of some sort who moves with his wife, Barbara (Lynda Day George) into a new home in the Caribbean. His friend Del Giorgio (Michael Dante) and Del's friend Dr. Frank Albanos (Mario Milano) - who adds barely anything to the plot except being a tag-along to Del, and a suspicious yet unfulfilled character - obtained the place for them after the owners died, and it's a damn castle. Of course, Barbara and Larry are taken with it, even after the tale of the owners' deaths. It seems that the lady who had owned the house was in a loveless marriage with her husband, who would fool around on her, and she practiced black magic as revenge on him. He ended up killing her, but not before she killed him too, and now the house is supposed to be haunted by the vengeful black witch. The hoodoo doesn't get to the newlyweds, until Barbara is possessed by the evil spirit, and then it's up to Larry to save his wife before it's too late.If it sounds like a familiar plot line, it is. It plays out exactly like anything from The Exorcist to The Amityville Horror. While not original, it is pretty entertaining. I love John Saxon - he's a great actor and seems like a pretty cool guy. But one thing that gets me in this movie are all the flaws.For example, at one point it seems like Del Giorgio is out to get Larry and Barbara. For what reason? Well, it would make sense to assume that Del is trying to break it off between Larry and Barbara, since it is mentioned that Del had had a fling with Barb in the past. It almost plays out - Barb is possessed, and starts making out with Del, and the audience thinks that maybe, just maybe, this vengeful plot arc will play out, only to find that Barb kills Del before anything can actually happen and makes everything suspicious that Del was planning a moot point. I just wonder if it was actually supposed to seem like Del was in cahoots with Dr. Frank Albanos, or if it was just something that I misinterpreted. Either way, I also found it weird that Frank was both a doctor and always at the construction site.Which leads me to another question - what's up with the construction site? It's never really explained what's going on, and while it's not important, there are scenes at the work site where I was left wondering what exactly they were doing.The movie's not boring - the hauntings are semi-dramatic, and it was fun to see Saxon almost get killed by a falling wooden idol, but much of the movie is really loosely pulled together into a coherent plot. There's also a witch doctor that Saxon goes to to help exorcise the demon in Barbara, but to no avail - nothing happens. There's also only about 5 deaths in the whole movie, but they're spaced out enough so that one doesn't get bored too quickly.Bluntly, though, the movie has too many wordy moments and not enough action. And whoever's idea it was that possessed bodies are cloaked in, and shoot, green mist was a little whacked. Barbara seriously looks spooky - that is, until she becomes Superman with green lasers firing from her eyes - then it just throws the suspense all down the drain.I will use a Playwriting vocab term here - deus ex machina. In Beyond Evil, Freed uses this to max effect. A little backstory to let you in on what happened here - Larry gets fed up with the wooden idol doll that he has upstairs and throws it in the river outside. Yet at the end of the movie, what magically apparates in the fireplace? That same idol doll. No one ever picked it up, or made mention of it, in the last 20 or so minutes of the film when it was thrown away, but it magically appears in the fireplace, and Larry burns it to exorcise the demon spirit from Barb. So basically, what happened was the writers got too confused as to how to end the film and decided that the easiest way was to miraculously place the idol in the fire to be consumed by flames, freeing Barb. It's a suspension of disbelief that just doesn't seem to work well, and it's pretty confusing, actually.But hey - you could do worse for an hour and a half movie. It's not original or creative, or even scary, but it's pretty funny AND fun to watch, and also, the music is pretty catchy. So if you're in the mood for a possession, or John Saxon (that dreamy hunk, and here, he's pretty young) then rent this movie. It's not evil, but it'll have to do.