JOURNEY INTO THE BEYOND (1975)
4K Restoration Blu-ray
Label: VCI Entertainment
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: R
Duration: 96 Minutes 16 Seconds
Audio: English or Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.66:1)
Director: Rolf Olsen
Cast: John Carradine, Paul Ross, Edgar D. Mitchell, Othmar Fischer
When I was a kid in the late-70's early 80's I loved docu-series about the supernatural and the mysterious, my favorites were Ripley's Believe It or Not?, Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World and In Search of..., I thought these were rather fascinating explorations of the unknown and paranormal, the sort of stuff that gave me goosebumps and made the hair raise up on the back on my neck. If I really think back on it it was probably the bigfoot episode of The Six Million Dollar Man that started by fascination of crypto and other strange things, but it was these sort of TV series that fed by thirst for the unknowable, as well as those later published Time-Life Books series Mysteries of the Unknown. I don't know that I ever saw the German-made shockumentary Journey Into the Beyond (1975) on TV or not, I certainly don't remember it if I had, but when I was a kid I would have lapped this stuff up like a thirsty dog on a summer day for sure - but that was then and this is now, and I'm a jaded old man now. Watching it today this mondo-pretendo is pretty dang laughable. The best part of it is that the one time venerable actor turned horror/schlock icon John Carradine (Satan's Cheerleaders) narrates this tour of the so-called supernatural, but honestly it's a pretty hokey look at various psychic phenomena, a cruddy exorcism, footage of purported auras surrounding human bodies, faith healers, a corny séance, crying statues, the levitating witch doctor Nana Owaku, some people amazed by the power of magnets, and various surgeries performed without anesthesia or surgical tools. The surgeries are perhaps the most intriguing if scoffable segments, we get a psychic abominable surgery, a witch doctor who performs eye-bulging cataract surgery, and a dentist who operates substituting hypnotic suggestion in place of anesthesia, some proto-Dr. Pimple Popper type cyst-squeezing, and of course some Nat Geo approved nudity. There's not really anything real horrific here unless your of a delicate nature I guess, I could see the surgery stuff getting to the weak-stomached but if you're a horror fan there's not much to get excited about. If you're a fans of film gimmicks along the lines of William Castle's "Fright Break" from Homicidal or the "Werewolf Break" from the Amicus flick The Beast Must Die then you will probably get a schlocky kick from this film's 'violence warning' gimmick, which is just a horn sound played before violent sequences, and a bell-ring to indicate the end of those scenes. It's a pretty cheap and hardly eyebrow raising assortment of spiritual and paranormal hokum, making for a mighty limp noodle of a mondo flick if you ask me, padded to the nth degree with footage of atomic bomb explosions, NASA launches, firing squads, and the moon landing, and dull and thoroughly unconvincing testimony from so-called experts and practitioners. John Carradine's narration states that this flick might just "melt your sanity", and it's true, but hardly in the way the producers meant, this is dullsville.
Audio/Video: Journey Into The Beyond (1975) makes it's worldwide Blu-ray debut from VCI Entertainment in 1080p HD widescreen (1.66:1) advertised as a "4K restoration". It's quite watchable but hardly pristine, there's plenty of vertical lines, smaller scratches, debris and staining evident throughout. Grain is evident and appreciable, but it can look course at times, but it waxes and wanes a bit based on the various sources. I am assuming this is coming from a theatrical print based on the blemishes and lack of depth and clarity. Like I said, it's quite watchable but is soft and colors are muted, it has a grindhouse patina to it for sure. Audio comes by way of either English or Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 with optional English subtitles, there's not a lot of depth or layering to it, but it's never a problem to discern narration and dialogue, so while the lossy track won't win any awards it does the job.
The only extras are a pair of Missing Scenes of lesser quality than the main feature both featuring a guy named Petro Hoy, that don't really amount to much, but cool to have them included just the same. The single-disc release arrives in a standard keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork featuring the original illustrated movie poster artwork, which is actually quite fetching. I would also note that I think this is one of the more attractive designed sleeves I have seen from VCI with a clean, eye-catching layout, and the spine looks great, reverting back to the traditional VCI logo and big bold lettering that stand apart on the shelf. I've mostly thought that VCI layouts have been stuck in the past with dated fonts and VHS era layouts, a bit like their at times suspect transfers, so I appreciate seeing some advancement in the design work.
Special Features:
- Missing Clip 1: Petro Hoy, Psychic & Philosopher (6:19)
- Missing Clip 2: Petro Joy, PHD., View on Death (1:30)
- Trailer (1:31)
Screenshots from the VCI Blu-ray:
