Beyond the Door III (1989)


Sometimes it is possible to see the same movie over and over again, especially when it comes to horror or exploitation.  This is not my experience with Beyond the Door III, but I have run into it with others, and I'm sure some viewers first encountered this movie as Amok Train or Death Train, both of which are better titles.  Just to be clear, this movie has nothing to do with Beyond the Door or Beyond the Door II, the latter of which is actually the Mario Bava film Shock retitled for distribution in the U.S.

The reason this was given such a strange title when it hit American video stores is because of executive producer Ovidio G. Assonitis was the director on the original 1974 film.  This movie has some similar plot points, mainly Satan trying to have a bride and some offspring, but it ends there.  Rather, this movie was a low-budget splatter film from exploitation director Jeff Kwitny, largely taking advantage of the fact that Yugoslavia was beginning to open up along with the rest of the Iron Curtain to Western filmmakers.  

Beverly Putnic (Mary Kohnert) is an American teenager of Serbian descent who gets the chance to go along with some other students to observe an ancient "passion play" in the remote village of Ufir.  They are met in Belgrade by Professor Andromolek (Bo Svenson) who takes them to the village where the inhabitants quickly try to burn everyone but Beverly alive.  All except one escape, with Beverly making it onto a train along with Christie (Sarah Conway Ciminera), Kevin (William Geiger) and Angel (Alex Vitale).  Larry (Ron Williams) jumps off the train to try to save another student named Melanie (Renee Rancourt), breaking his leg in the process.

While Larry and Melanie try to escape from the villagers on foot the train becomes possessed, with the crew being killed off and the main passenger car decoupled.  While concerned railroad officials try to figure out what is happening Beverly finds out that she is meant as the bride of Lucifer, and that is why she has been kept a virgin all her life.  Since she has no love for her fellow students she at first revels in her new power to kill them off, but soon has second thoughts about her impending nuptials. 

Beyond the Door III quickly goes off the rails, both figuratively and literally.  A good portion of the film that features the railroad officials trying to stop the train is Serbian without subtitles, of which I'm fortunate to understand a tiny bit since it's similar enough to Russian.  Still, most audiences in the U.S. I'm sure don't even have that small advantage, meaning a good portion of the film will leave most English-speaking audiences a bit lost.  The main part of the movie, despite the crazy plot, is surprisingly easy to follow. 

No one really does a great acting job and there is not much characterization, even with Beverly, but it seems like most of that was an afterthought.  The idea was to have some sort of plot on which to string a bunch of creative deaths see just how far they could stretch things with the limited budget.  I would say that a good portion works, with two deaths in particular - a woman ripping her face off and another of a guy being ripped in half and further mutilated by the train - looking quite impressive.  

This is pure drive-in fare or, in this case, direct-to-video fare.  I don't know if it ever got a theatrical release anywhere, but it is in widescreen and it appears that Kwitny at least tried to give it some style, making it feel like some of the stranger Italian films of the '70s.  It fits well in the 1980s with that sense of just anything goes and manages to entertain, which is more than many of these films do. 

Beyond the Door III (1989)
Time: 94 minutes
Starring: Mary Kohnert, Bo Svenson
Director: Jeff Kwitny

 

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