Caution: Some plot and scenes revealed
"Voices from beyond" is one of Fulci's most coherent and successful productions, especially among his last films. As usual, the subject are the horrors of death and what comes after it.
The story deals with the death of Giorgi Mainardi, a man with a lot of money and enemies. After the prologue and the opening credits we witness the violent death of Mainardi, vomitting loads of blood. During his burial ceremony we are introduced to the main characters and in flash back sequences to why they had good reason to hate him. After his death, Mainardi manages to keep contact to the living: To his only trustee, his daughter Rosy, he talks in dreams, and his enemies he haunts with terrible nightmares. This concept gives Fulci the opportunity to insert many wildly surreal dream sequences (including, believe it or not, a zombie attack), and he makes good use of it. This dreamlike aspect of the movie is contrasted to the clinical analysis of Mainardi's death and decay, starting from his unpleasant demise on the death bed, ranging over the autopsy carried out by the Maestro (i.e., Fulci) himself, and ending in repeated shots of his decaying corpse.
Other fine images include a still life with broken light bulbs (the device used to kill Mainardi) which summarizes the evil plot against him.
We also watch the claustrophobia of Mainardi's father whose spirit is still alive but who has no means to communicate with the outside world, except his tears. He has to suffer interminable mockings through Mainardi's enemies.
Maybe this character expresses Fulci's own incapacity to express himself properly in his latest movies due to extremely limited budgets and equipment. In fact, in an interview Fulci declared that he wanted to make one more movie with sufficient production values (i.e., "The Wax mask"), so that he can die in peace. As everybody knows, fate has declined this favour to him.
Nevertheless, with "Voices from beyond", Fulci has demonstrated that he could create something of value even with restricted resources.
