Buio Omega: Beyond The Darkness

Buio Omega: Beyond The Darkness - 1979 - Italy - Horror/Exploitation

Buio Omega: Beyond The Darkness is a video nasty made by one of the Italian horror heavyweights of the 70's and 80's; Joe D'amato.  D'amato has made around 200 films over the years, from sleazy softcore porn to hardcore exploitation and gore, he's done it all.

Buio Omega's plot revolves around a sick, twisted man who cannot deal with the recent loss of his lover and goes to extreme measures with his equally deranged accomplice Iris to preserve her corpse and to keep his macabre secret under wraps!

Like many Italian horror/exploitation  flicks of this time period, Buio Omega sports copious amount of gore and lengthy drawn out kill scenes, including a cringeworthy autopsy/pseudo mummification and some gruesome deaths including finger nail removal and decapitation via butcher axe.   This flick has its share of effective gross out scenes and demented sexual perversion as well, however a good deal of this malevolence is committed in front of a gorgeous rural Italian landscape. Despite this Buio Omega is certainly not a movie for the faint of heart, and is a video nasty in every sense of the word.

This flick has the nostalgic bad dubbing Italian films of this era are normally accompanied with.  It also has a synthesizer score by the one of the most highly regarded composers of the genre; Goblin.  The score is certainly fun, but unfortunately its nothing compared to the Goblin masterpieces on display in films like Dario Argento's Suspiria and Deep Red or the iconic score to Romero's Dawn Of The Dead.

I've always had a soft spot for Italian horror movies from this era, and Beyond The Darkness fits nicely into the category.  A worthy addition to D'amato's huge body of work and an overall entertaining film, give it a watch!

Plot - 7/10
Blood n' Guts - 7.5/10
Perversion - 7/10
Action - 6/10
Acting - 6/10
OVERALL - 7/10 

Stealthily preparing the corpse for preservation

 Yummy!

 Iris disposing of a body piece by piece

 Decomposing in a tub of acid.

 Being predatory in front of a breath taking landscape.

 Burnt alive in a furnace!

Stacy

 Stacy - 2001 - Japan - Zombie/Splatter

Stacy is a film I have been trying to get my hands on for many years,, either due to botched amazon deliveries or other issues I haven't been able to see it until now.  Stacy revolves around zombie school girls aged 15-17 known as "Stacies" who for some reason experience something called NDH "near death happiness" and turn into raving lunatic zombies.
 Stacy is silly and tongue in cheek, and like many overly gory low budget Japanese movies made as of late it feels like you are watching a live action manga.  Unfortunately when no one is getting mutilated Stacy fills time with lengthy scenes of "quirky" dialogue and situations that wind up just seeming boring. It introduces entirely too may dull and drab characters that I would much prefer to see just get chopped up than tell their life story.
The over the top blood n guts are where Stacy stands out the most.  The majority of the gore FX are delightful and the chainsaw scenes (although few and far between) don't hold back at all, they are shown in all their gory glory.
The camera work in Stacy is occasionally impressive and professional looking considering the budget, however shots are often squandered by flat lighting, a typically seen problem in B-movies.
One thing that is particularly obvious throughout is the abundance of American horror movie references and homages.  The chainsaws in the film are known as "Bruce Campbell's Right Hand 2", a blatant Evil Dead 2 reference, and the zombie killing task force was named Romero.  The makers of this film were clearly smitten with George Romero, as some scenes within the film so closely resembled scenes of Romero's Day Of The Dead that it felt more like a ripoff than a tribute. 
One thing that particularly annoyed me about Stacy was the ending, and how it went on...and on...and on.  The writer clearly didnt know how to wrap the film up and although it only has an 80 minute runtime there were about 5 times towards the last half hour of the film where it could have easily ended, but didn't.  It spent entirely too much time trying to tie in a love themed back-story to the plot, and clearly didn't know how to properly go about doing so.
In conclusion, Stacy has its moments but overall was a bit disappointing...Simply, If you are not a gorehound, chances are you will not find Stacy all that enjoyable.



Blood n' Guts - 8/10
Action - 6.5/10
Plot - 5/10
Acting - 5.5/10 
OVERALL - 6/10

A "stacy" gets liquidated by "romero"

The promotional bunnies showing off "Bruce Cambell's Right Hand 2"

 Exposed brain Stacy

A scene that greatly resembles a scene from Day Of The Dead.

Preparation for a bloody finale