Beyond Belief (1976) User Reviews

The true background

[Keep_Flying · 2/10 · 20 August 2006]

The only part of this movie that was filmed specifically for it, was the segment on past-life regression. I researched and produced this segment, after having gone through past-life regression with the hypnotist in this film. Too many years have gone by for me to remember his name, but I found what I learned to be interesting, but not convincing, as far as, my situation was concerned.

Everything else, was purchased for use in "Beyond Belief". Surprisingly, I have seen this film on television twice over the years, and for my parents "pride", the credits were cut just after my name appeared on screen. It was also available, at one time, on VHS, but my local Blockbuster never carried it. I don't know if it has been or ever will be available on DVD.

I no longer work in the industry, but although I thought this film was awful, it was the only time something I worked on carried my name as a credit and it has gotten me a listing in IMDb, something very few of my friends can say.

Low Budget Pseudoscience

[JHC3 · 3/10 · 17 June 2000]

For reasons that escape me, the 1970s was the decade of the feature-length pseudoscientific documentary. 1976 is arguably the height of this phenomenon which included titles likes "The Devil's Triangle," "Mysteries of the Gods," "Overlords of the UFO," and "Beyond Belief."

"Beyond Belief" appears to be an example of a documentary where the budget was so low that no actual filming occurred except for segments involving the host, Richard Mathews. All of the mysteries it covers appear to be film footage drawn from earlier documentaries. A fairly wide assortment of subjects are covered including Cleve Backster's experiments with detecting emotions in yogurt cultures (no, I'm not making this up), ESP and dream research featuring Stanley Krippner and Douglas Dean, hypnotism and past life regression, table tipping and seances, and life after death. One long segment concentrates on English "spiritist" Matthew Manning who claims to have been involved with everything from poltergeist activity to automatic writing to psychokinesis since he was a child. The film closes with a long segment on UFO activity and covers the usual stories. An interview with "nuclear physicist and lecturer" Stanton T. Friedman is central to this.

On the surface, it appears the producers ran low on funds well into the project. The UFO segment appears to have been tacked on and was sourced from a different documentary. Furthermore, there are no closing comments by the host.

For the typical film viewer, this is a horrid mishmash of ridiculous material and should be avoided. For those who believe in such phenomena or who happen to enjoy pseudoscientific documentaries, this may be worth a look.

A paranormal "That's Incredible!"

[Year2889 · 29 July 2002]

Like some kind of paranormal "That's Incredible", The Force Beyond is a rare gem from the psuedo-scientific 70s. All that's missing is pyramid power and pet rocks that bleed. But you do get Yoghurt that winces.

Narrator intensive, cheap as all get-out, and embarrassingly entertaining The Force Beyond is almost totally unavailable. Unless it is reproduced on DVD it will probably never see the light of day again.

It's a shame that this genre is being largely ignored by DVD companies.

A really silly film that is still pretty cool

[graphixv · 7/10 · 16 August 2014]

This is one of those films you have to take with a grain of salt as they present various weird ideas. I think the people who would probably like the film are actually like me, people who do not actually believe a thing in it!

I find the film very entertaining because I view it and the serious people in it, as very amusing. Even the host plays it very straight, it's hilarious.

It's one of those films that is cool to listen to in the background while you are doing something else. Also, I have found it excellent to fall asleep to..........

I have most of this film on a VHS tape that I recorded off late night cable 13 years ago! but have never viewed the end of the film (some mysterious force caused the tape to run out).