The Force Beyond (1977) Poster

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7/10
Pure silliness!
BandSAboutMovies19 January 2019
Warning: Spoilers
He Weekly World News was launched in 1979 by The National Enquirer publisher Generoso Pope, Jr. as a means to keep using the black-and-white press that when that higher profile tabloid went to full color. Unlike any of the other rags you'd get at the supermarket, The Weekly World News was unafraid to wildly speculate on aliens, monsters and Elvis. It also introduced Batboy to the world and has been sadly lamented since it ceased publication in 2007 (although you can still read it online).

The Force Beyond is like watching an issue of that long lost tabloid without the smell of the pulp or getting black ink all over your fingers.

Producer Donn Davison did it all. He was a yo-yo master and a professional magician, while also a producer for Film Ventures International. He was a huckster who voiced the pitch to buy how-to sex manuals in roadshows and he ran the Dragon Art Theater in California, all before he did the voiceovers for The Crawling Thing and Creature Of Evil. Now, he's our host, presenting the words of his wife, Barbara Morris Davison, who also was behind the movie Honey Britches. Whew!

Guess who else brought this movie your way? William Sachs, who also directed The Incredible Melting Man. Strap in. This movie is a non-stop deluge of info, where things are just thrown at you with no set order or reason. Grown men trying to make their own UFOs? Yeah, but did I tell you about the barn in Bangor that just suddenly disappeared?

Meanwhile, the soundtrack is a combination of Moog and chopped and screwed interpretations of Christian music made years before anyone knew who DJ Screw was.

My favorite part of this movie is that it's voiced by Emperor Rosko, the son of Hollywood mogul Joe Pasternak. He started his career in 1964 on Radio Caroline, a pirate radio station broadcasting from a ship off the coast of Britain. He was joined on the air by his pet bird Alfie and would nearly rap his American-style music intros. He was also the inspiration for the character that Philip Seymour Hoffman played in Pirate Radio. He sounds like a verifiable maniac in this movie.

Honestly: this movie is one of the most ridiculous films I've ever witnessed, a whiplash tour through everything from Cayce to Bigfoot, Atlantis and MUFON. It's the visual version of open calls back when Art Bell was still alive and people would call from Area 51 or the Antichrist would call in. Say it with me: "West of the Rockies, you're now on Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell!"

You should read the above paragraph as me jumping up and down telling you that you should call off work, cancel any plans and watch this as soon as possible.
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May "The Force Beyond" be with you!
Year288913 January 2002
A "Z-grade" film in the tradition of Chariots of the Gods. The seventies spawned several other wanna-be speculation documentaries (Outer Space Connection, In Search of Noah's Ark, Amazing World of Ghosts), all of which sought to answer man's most troubling historical mysteries, as well as to tackle many a modern riddle. From Aliens, to Automatic Writing, from U.F.O.s to E.S.P, each of these films did it's part to excite and dismay its audience. The Force beyond is a latecomer, and as such is perhaps the most ridiculous of the whole bunch. In any case, a genre is born.

The Force Beyond promises proof that aliens exist and that the film's Director, a modern day P.T. Barnum, is going to show us the evidence at some time later in the film. While we wait we are treated to a young man recalling dreams sent to him via remote sender who seems to be a psychic of some repute. Soon this is followed by regression therapy (chilling) and with the liberal padding of stock footage (the hallmark of the Genre) a bit of U.F.O. footage is shown to "prove" the existence of life in the universe other than our own. Or is it?

This is an amazing film. But not for the reason it is supposed to be, which is the definition for a cult classic. Unfortunately this film does not quite qualify. To be a cult classic, you need a cult. If this film has a cult I would shudder to meet it's leader.

This film is recommended highly for those who love the films of Sun Classic.
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2/10
Silly, incoherent mess
InjunNose23 September 2009
Stock footage of the Nazca lines and Tiwanaku's Gate of the Sun, tons of blurry, indistinct UFO photographs from the 1960s and '70s, and eyewitness accounts of flying saucer sightings constitute proof--according to host Donn Davison--that something is out there. The big finish: a few seconds of footage of a Soviet cosmonaut ("smuggled from behind the Iron Curtain!") which Davison attempts to pass off as film of an extraterrestrial being. "The Force Beyond" is insulting even to the indiscriminate drive-in audience for whom it was made. (If the synthetic background music sounds familiar, then you've probably seen Bob Clark's semi-legendary horror flick "Deathdream" more than once.)
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8/10
'Another inimitable 1970's exploration centering on man's woeful inability to fully accept his arbitrary, nonsensical existence
Weirdling_Wolf23 January 2014
Another inimitable 1970's exploration centering on man's woeful inability to fully accept his arbitrary, nonsensical existence, and the complete lack of any tangible evidence whatsoever of god / aliens / ghostie-bonks, or even watchable latter-day Ridley Scott movies. Along with the equally deranged Chariots of The Gods', 'The Force Beyond' is must-see TV, and proof positive, yet again, that the world is screwy enough without inventing a god or errant space gremloids! Grab a chilly sixer out of the fridge, decant said frosty ale into a decent pint glass, allow head to settle and rapidly discharge amber loveliness into the gaping wet hole in the lower quadrant of your head - REPEAT AS NEEDED. Of course, drinking along with potent medications whilst viewing this gonzoid film will greatly improve your entertainment experience!
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