VOTD 04/14/2025

 Mitch & Ira Yuseph: 7 Doors of Death soundtrack (Grindhouse Releasing)

Purchased new at Eide's

I guess I get a little sucked into to Record Store Day myself, but there's a good chance I might have bought this even without the hype sticker calling out, "2025 RSD Exclusive/BLOOD SHOT RED VINYL/Limited to 1000 copies". 

7 Doors of Death is an American video release of Lucio Fulci's The Beyond. Some consider it Fulci's best work. His horror films are graphically brutal, even if some of the effects look fake. Even his more Giallo-ish titles such as The Psychic and Don't Torture a Duckling each have one brutal effect, such as a man's face getting ripped off after jumping from a cliff. Fulci reveled in showing nasty, graphic details. 

It's not a plot-driven film, to be sure. A woman inherits an old New Orleans hotel, which we discover (not a big spoiler here) sits on one of the seven doors to the gates of Hell. Weird and deadly occurrences ensue: eye gouging! Throat ripping! Tarantulas, um, tarantulaing! And possibly most shocking of all, a teen girl's head gets blown open with a shotgun. The last one might have been a problem for some regions and countries, and I can't guarantee it's in the American cut given its R rating. 

I didn't always say I engaged in good taste, though I definitely have my limits. Italian cannibal films are not my thing (just too cruel and ugly), I have no interest in The Human Centipede, and I know enough to not see A Serbian Film. Despite all the grossness of The Beyond, I have an issue with it that's almost laughable. There's a really nasty basement that a plumber has to enter to unclog some pipes. (It doesn't end well for him.) Having lived in Baton Rouge, I thought, there are no basements in New Orleans!

Roger Ebert gave the movie a 1/2 star review out of four, ranking it higher than Freddy Got Fingered or Rob Reiner's North. Or for that matter Caligula or I Spit on Your Grave. He was notoriously unsympathetic to most horror films, but far less than even Gene Siskel, who found The Silence of the Lambs to be too much. 

So what of the 7 Doors score? It has moments but Fabio Frizzi's original score is markedly better: more interesting, more eerie. (I have a copy of that too, it's possible I've even blogged about it before.) The Yusephs rework ideas over a little too much for my taste. It's very keyboard-oriented, synths, acoustic piano, snare drum (sampled?). There's atmosphere at times, but I just don't understand why the Frizzi score had to be replaced.

I'm seeing on imdb.com that the American theatrical release had its own composer, Walter E. Spear. It really begs of the question of why? I know...surely it has to come down to money. Probably licensing. Not paying for the original score. But then why commission a new score? I don't get it. We'll probably see Spear's score released on vinyl at some point too.