My review was written in November 1989 after watching the movie on Unicorn video cassette.
Perhaps the screwiest of Larry Buchanan's series of conspiracy-theory films, "Beyond the Doors" is a direct-to-video release postulating that the government put a hit out on Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison.
Filmed in 1983 with the Joplin-esque title "Down on Us", it's fun but extremely silly entertainment, opening with a George Bernard Shaw quote: "Assassination is the extreme form of censorship".
Unlike his other films about Marilyn Monroe and Lee Harvey Oswald, Buchanan is on pretty shaky ground here, trying to create links and conspiracies involving three of the showing stars from the '60s.
Episodic pic unfolds awkwardly in flashbacks dating from 1968-71, as Steven Tice reads a file left him by his just assassinated dad (Sandy Kenyon), a government mole who was assigned to kill the three singers, supposedly because of their political stands and influence on young people.
Name-dropping script mentions Richard Nixon (especially in somewhat cryptic quotes from a 1977 interview) and others in vaguely pointing a finger, and depicts another deceased figure, J. Edgar Hoover, onscreen. Links between the three stars and their personal interrelationships remain quite unconvincing, however. Buchanan is far more circumspect than the recent "Wired" film in depicting surviving folks; no one will recognize, for example, sidemen Mitch Mitchell or Ray Manzarek from the characters shown on screen.
Main content, filled with sexploitation material involving groupies going topless, is a rather campy re-creation of concerts and backstage/out-on-the-town incidents. It's all rendered goofy by the decision to save big bucks and rely on a dozen soundalike songs by David Shorey, RIchard Bowen and Janet Strover that gives the feel but do not replicate the impact of the singers' actual hits.
Three hesps in the lead roles don't look like their targets, but Riba Meryl as Joplin and Gregory Allen Chatman as Hendrix do prettty well in mimicking thier voices and manner. Bryan Wolf does a poor job recalling Morrison, while his unidentified gilfriend (called simply "She" in the credits) is well played by Susanne Barnes.
Pic's only revelation is the claim that Morriswon faked his own death in order to regain his privacy. According to Buchanan, Morrison wnet to live in a monastery in Spain, dying there quietly in January 1974. If you believe that one, Buchanan has the real story of Howard Hughes and Jean Harlow in the can for perusal as well.
