Beyond the Door

Beyond the Door (1974)

Chi sei?

Evil grows beyond the door!

Jessica Barrett, wife and mother of two young children, begins to show signs of demonic possession while pregnant with her third child. As she seeks help from her husband and doctor, a mysterious man approaches her and seems to have some answers.

Date of release
1974-11-21
TMDB
5.1 / 10 (69)
Runtime
1h 49m
Genres
Horror
Director
Ovidio G. Assonitis
Collection
Beyond the Door Collection

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Box office: $15M
  • Budget: $350K
  • Earned 42.9× its budget

Beyond the Door is a 1974 Italian supernatural horror film directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis and Roberto D'Ettore Piazzoli, starring Juliet Mills, Gabriele Lavia, and Richard Johnson. The plot follows a San Francisco housewife (Mills) who becomes demonically possessed in the midst of a pregnancy.

Production

Beyond the Door was co-directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis (billed under the alias 'O. Hellman') and cinematographer Roberto D'Ettorre Piazzoli (as 'Robert Barrett'). It was the directorial debut for both parties, Assonitis was previously a producer of genre films like Who Saw Her Die? and Man from the Deep River.

The screenplay was written by Assonitis (billed under the alias 'O. Hellman'), Piazzoli, and Antonio Troiso. A number of collaborating writers also assisted, including Alex Rebar, Giorgio Marini, Aldo Crudo, and Christopher Cruise.

Assonitis originally wanted to cast Samantha Eggar in the lead role, but his assistant Peter Shepherd recommended Juliet Mills, with whom he'd previously worked on the Billy Wilder film Avanti! (1972). Mills recalled in a 2005 interview:I just got a call from my agent that they were making this film in San Francisco and in Rome. I had made a previous film in Rome, Avanti! with Jack Lemmon and I love working in Italy.

Exterior filming took place on-location in San Francisco, while interiors were shot on sets at De Paolis Studios in Rome. The film's special effects were designed by Wally Gentleman, who previously designed effects for Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Like most Italian films of the time, the film was shot without live sound and all dialogue and foley were later dubbed in. Juliet Mills and Richard Johnson recorded their own dialogue for the English version, in the Italian version they were respectively dubbed by Maria Pia Di Meo and Pino Locchi.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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