Journey Into The Beyond — Journey Into The Beyond(Blu Ray)
Journey Into The Beyond (aka Reise ins Jenseits - Die Welt des Übernatürlichen) is a mid-70s West German-produced Mondo documentary. It takes in narration from John Carradine- and features psychic surgery, exorcism, a levitation witch doctor, and more. Here from VCI Entertainment is a Blu-Ray release of the film.
Journey Into The Beyond was made in the year 1975. It was directed by Vienna-born Rolf Olsen- who had thirty feature-length films to his name. These went from harem-based comedy Die Türkischen Gurken (1962), western The Last Ride to Santa Cruz (1964), Crime drama Females For Hire (1968), bank robber crime drama Bloody Friday (1972), and Mondo Shocking Asia II: The Last Taboos (1985).
The film comes in at just over the one hour and thirty-five-minute mark- with the version we have here being all in English. With tag lines like ‘Is There Life After Death?’, ‘The 100% Authentic and Horrifying Truth!’, ‘Not just another movie ... It's another world’, ‘With John Carradine ... your guide through the world of the supernatural’. The film remains relatively entertaining- though we do get some repetition with what we’re shown- there is a little blood & gore along the way- though by Mondo standards it’s on the less extreme side of things…oh, and if you are squeamish, we get a bell tone when the bloody stuff comes up, and a gong when it ends.
After some shots of outer space and footage of human devastation - we drop into the ‘supposable’ real footage. First up we have a dentist removing a tooth from a woman with the use of just hypnotise. Moving on we have a young woman really hamming it up in an amusing way been possession- as she starts freaking out at the dining table, with an actor playing the priest trying not to laugh. We next move to the UK- first, we have a ‘priest’ doing an exorcism in a church- his comb-over flopping all over the place, and again terrible hamming things up. Next, we go to the headquarters of the Society of Spiritualism- where a middle-aged lady is drawing a picture of someone’s loved one who has passed.
As we move on we have psychic surgery in the Philippines & psychic eye surgery in Africa- both of these have moments of bloodness. There is a levitating African witch doctor- which is one of the more impressive set up here- as he literally floats above a ringed fire at nighttime. There are several huge cigar-puff spiritual doctors in Brazil- who take on the spirits of the possessed, and a few more things.
The whole thing is soundtracked with a 70’s electronica- and there are some neat/ memorable cues along the way, with some effective electro blips, blops, and simmer. As you’d expect Carradine does a good job narrating- giving some of the scenes (semi) believability. All in all, I’d say Journey Into The Beyond is a middling mondo.
Moving onto this region free Blu-Ray. The print shows some wear & damage(including a rather annoying dark blotch in the centre of the picture for ten or so minutes of the film)- though the colours look good & bright. The only extras here are two scenes- these find a white-haired & white-suited man walking on fire, and sticking needles through his cheeks- and I can see why these were cut, as they don’t really fit the film's focus/concept.
I’d say if you’re a fan of the Mondo documentary, or enjoy 70 mockumentaries then this will most certainly appeal. And it would be nice to see VCI Entertainment put out a few more lesser-known mondo’s.