Buio Omega (1979) Reviews

• A perfect movie to vomit!

  HumanoidOfFlesh2003-07-14

  Joe D'Amato's "Beyond the Darkness"/"Buio Omega" is one of the most transgressive horror movies ever made.Regarded as Joe D'Amato's best film "Buio Omega" certainly delivers some of the most disgusting gore ever put on screen(fingernails are ripped off with pliers,a body is dismembered with a butcher knife and its pieces are thrown into a bath of acid etc.)The infamous embalming sequence is truly revolting.Kieran Canter is perfect as a young taxidermist Frank Wyler and Franca Stoppi gives excellent performance as Iris.The film is certainly twisted,so if you're a fan of Italian extreme horror you can't miss this depraved masterpiece.Check it out.9 out of 10.

• One of the nastiest highlights ever made!

  Coventry2004-04-07

  Murder, mayhem and mutilation…shown in all its pride and glory! Buio Omega a.k.a Buried Alive a.k.a Beyond the Darkness is a finger-licking and ultra-gory sleazefest. D'Amato's film certainly is a landmark in the Italian shlock/sick cinema as it contains some of the grossest and explicit nauseating sequences ever shot on film. The young and introvert Frank cannot live without his recently deceased girlfriend Anna, so he digs up her corpse, embalms her and keeps her around his mansion. After this, he descents further into madness and starts to kill girls randomly and his freaky housekeeper Iris assists him. Now, Frank is pretty messed up in the head but Iris is just downright insane!! She makes a hobby out of dismembering dead bodies and she breastfeeds the 22-year-old Frank! The first half hour may seem a little lame and low on bloodshed but, as soon as the gore kicks in, it doesn't stop till the end credits role and it becomes more and more repulsive by the minute! D'Amato servers a disturbingly realistic embalming-process along with some detailed torturing scenes, dissections and gruesome butchering! Of course, like it should in Italian's nastiest, there are a lot of perversely orientated undertones present such as necrophilia, cannibalism and even a variant on the ‘Oedipus'-theme! Joe d'Amato never was world's most brilliant director. That's okay, since he never claimed to be and he always clearly mentioned his influences. He's more like a businessman with more adult films on his repertoire…The horror films he made are vicious but technically weak, all together! Nonetheless, Buio Omega is an exception! Unlike his other horror films, Buried Alive has tension, a great soundtrack, a constant morbid atmosphere and even a bit of surprisingly good acting! Cinzia Monreale, who plays the dead love-interest Anna, became more famous after starring in Fulci's masterpiece the Beyond and the creepy aunt Iris also starred in a few delightful `babes behind bars' flicks. The circle of fans that likes this kind of films is rather small…but they're very devoted. For them, Buio Omega is a must see!

• Admirably sleazy Italian "classic"

  fertilecelluloid2003-12-31

  D'Amato's adherence to all things vile and sleazy sometimes produces rubbish. In the case of BEYOND THE DARKNESS, he's delivered something great. The theme is necrophilia and obsession. A man obsesses over his recently deceased girlfriend and beds her in his country house. Sexual intrigue with his maid livens proceedings and a sequence in which a hitchhiker has her fingernails removed is the one to write home about. I'm not reluctant to say it: I love stuff like this when it's relentless, made without guilt, and moves at a quick clip. The Goblin soundtrack feels just right and the special make-up effects are more than adequate. D'Amato achieves a vile, putrid, rotten atmosphere with this gem, and you can't fault the guy for that, can you?

• A true masterpiece of the macabre.

  coldwaterpdh2007-12-23

  Say what you will about the acting, the music, the script, or even the plot of this potent and disturbing flick...it hits you like a ton of bricks and leaves you with a dropped jaw, hungry for more. It's ashame that D'Amato didn't make more films like this. His repertoire includes a few cannibal flicks and lots of porn. This, along with "Anthropophagus," stands out as his most effective work. With "Beyond the Darkness," it's like he set out to make the most horrific and disgusting slasher flick he could fathom, and he pretty much hits the nail right on the head. There is something deeply disturbing about several scenes in this film. The bathtub scene, along with the housemaid eating the stew scene are among some of the most disturbing scenes I have seen in a film ever. And I've seen my share. All this being said, "Beyond the Darkness" is a film that can be watched over and over. D'Amato somehow still keeps it fun. Unlike other extreme horror films of the era, it remains watchable. To think that he made a film like this with what was, no doubt, a tiny budget, and it came out so beautifully unflinching and nihilistic, is nothing short of genius. "Beyond the Darkness" is one of the coolest movies I've ever seen. And like a fine wine, (made from blood and guts and acid,) it just keeps getting better with age. Watch it with your mom. A solid 9 out of 10, kids.

• The Sick twisted world of Joe D'Amato.

  mrphantasm2005-06-12

  Aristide Massaccesi a.k.a Joe D'Amato directed Buio Omega in the early 80's. Back in the day when movies weren't accused of being the cause of violence in schools and nonsense like that, filmmakers as D'Amato dared to stretch the limits of what can be seen in a screen. The gory scenes in his movies are not unintentionally funny they look like awful and painful, and D'Amato uses incredibly long shots in these murders shots. That is the main difference between his films and the American production to set an example Underrated as only an exploitation director D'Amato showed he had a trademark mixing gore and sex. He tried to take horror to the extreme without making a parody. The plot is quite simple, out of this simple story we get a collection of bizarre strong images. The gore is hard as a punch in your nose. This rawness makes Buio Omega unique as one of the most extreme pieces D'Amato made (along Anthropophagus). As we watch the hideous acts of this taxidermist we are surprised because he is not judged using the old trick of put phrases that make him look evil. Buio Omega is almost a silent movie. The moral view is on the viewer not in the filmmaker. But the last act has a common moral resolution that could let the people feel they are living in a just right world. The place you probably will find Buio Omega is an old rack of a dirty old video store, the kind of video that is found only for those treasure-seekers of unseen rare films. The music of Goblin is adequate for this kind of production; with their intense tunes they make the viewer feel even more uncomfortable. Synthesizers is all what this band needs to create dark ambient.