Sometimes, as I fork over hard earned cash for yet another blu-ray release of an old 80’s horror flick, I wonder at what point we are going to get through all the movies that deserve the treatment and start moving into the ones which no one really ever needs to see again. I believe Beyond Evil is still a relic of the VHS age, but I’ve decided that once I see someone like Vinegar Syndrome revive this one, the whole thing will have jumped the shark.

That’s because, although there are already a bunch of shitty old movies now on blu-ray, they tend at least to have something crazy going for them. They’ll at least be outrageous or in unusually bad taste, or something. Beyond Evil is just kind of inane and hum-drum, with poor to non-existent special effects. It would have really nothing going for it at all if it wasn’t for the presence of Lynda Day George (who is in her pretty spunky prime here) and of course John Saxon.

I’ve come to realise I have a strangely deep affection for Saxon. It’s almost like he’s become the epitome of the comforting, warm, fatherly presence in tacky movies. He makes me feel like everything is OK – which is ironic, because I think this feeling mainly comes from his role in Nightmare on Elm Street, and in that movie he really does a pretty terrible job of keeping Nancy safe.

Anyway, I simply can’t hate a movie that features John Saxon so prominently and, truth be told, I kind of enjoyed just watching him smarm his way around in his 1980 clothes on this weird island which seemed to have Asian overtones although clearly being set somewhere near the US. Every now and then, someone’s eyes would glow green in that indescribably cheap way, and that’s always good for a bit of a laugh too.