Beyond the Darkness 1979

Nine years after his parents died in a car accident, Francesco Koch lives in a villa on the outskirts of a South Tyrolean town, cared for by Iris [Franca Stoppi]. Iris is determined to become the mistress of the house and hires a witch to curse Anna Völkl [Cinzia Monreale], Francesco’s fiancée. When the witch works the curse by piercing a voodoo doll, Anna falls seriously ill. In the hospital, Anna reveals her desire to share one last truly intimate moment with Francesco before she dies. As Francesco kisses her, Anna’s heart stops, and she dies.

Back at the villa, Iris’s unsettling tenderness surfaces when she nurses Francesco, calling him her “little baby boy.” At the morgue, Francesco injects Anna’s body with preservatives, an act noticed by the mortician. The funeral gathers Anna’s parents and her twin sister Teodora, who studies nearby.

That night, Francesco drives to the cemetery to dig up Anna’s body. On the way home, he must pick up a hitchhiker after a blown tire forces a stop near a police car; a tourist named Jan [Lucia D’Elia] joins him in the car. After sharing a joint, the hitchhiker sleeps as Francesco returns to the villa with the corpse. In the workshop, Francesco disembowels Anna’s body, biting into her heart and installing glass eyes. When the hitchhiker awakens and discovers the tableau, a struggle erupts: she scratches Francesco, who then rips off some of her fingernails with pliers and chokes her to death.

Iris and Francesco dispose of the hitchhiker’s body with grisly efficiency, trimming the remains and dissolving them in a bathtub full of acid, then dumping the liquid in a garden hole. A disturbing moment follows as Iris eats tripe in a way that reminds Francesco of the dissolved body, triggering his vomiting, which she finds wildly amusing. Later, Iris approaches Francesco at the bedside and initiates an intimate act as he sits with Anna’s corpse nearby.

Days later, a jogger twists her ankle near the house; Francesco brings her inside for a night of sex, only to reveal Anna’s corpse beside them. The scene escalates into another brutal struggle, and the two dispose of the jogger’s body by burning it in a furnace downstairs. Iris, growing impatient with Francesco, hints at dissolving Anna’s memory altogether, and Francesco agrees to marry Iris and grant her mistress status in the house.

Iris hosts a dinner with her relatives and announces the engagement, but Francesco humiliates her the next day. The mortician returns, snoops around, and photographs Anna’s body before leaving. Later, Francesco picks up a woman at a disco, but sends her away after Teodora’s presence unsettles him. In a dim room, the woman hears Anna’s voice warning of a curse on the house. Descending the stairs, she glimpses Anna’s corpse seated in the hall.

Iris, fearing that Francesco will marry Teodora, confronts the situation with a knife. A violent fight ensues: Francesco bites a chunk from Iris’s cheek and, in a desperate counter, she gouges out his left eye. He retaliates by stabbing her in the heart, and Iris dies beside him. Francesco listens to Teodora’s heartbeat, then carries her downstairs. After incinerating Anna’s body, he dresses Teodora and makes her up to resemble Anna’s corpse.

When the mortician returns, he finds Iris dead and Francesco badly injured, near the furnace amid human remains. Francesco collapses and dies, and the mortician takes Teodora, believing her to be Anna’s corpse, to bury her in a cemetery. As the coffin is about to be sealed, Teodora suddenly pushes the lid open and emits a piercing scream.