Voices from Beyond

Voices from Beyond is a 1994 Italian horror film by director Lucio Fulci. The original shooting title of the film was Urla dal profondo. The story centers around the murder of a wealthy man despised by most of his relatives, with his spirit returning from the afterlife to guide his daughter in uncovering the identity of his killer. The film is not to be confused with another film by Fulci, The Beyond. Plot Giorgio Mainardi, a wealthy, middle-aged financier, lies dying in a hospital bed surrounded by his family. He has collapsed suddenly, coughing up blood. His last word is to his stone-faced family is, "Why?" The doctor's diagnosis of Giorgio's death is an internal hemorrhage, possibly from a stomach or intestinal ulcer. The following day, Giorgio's daughter Rosie arrives at the Mainardi estate having taken a leave of absence from her college studies to attend the funeral and for the reading of the will. Rosie soon finds her entire family squabbling over the estate. Giorgio's stepmother Hilda, refuses permission for an autopsy and taunts her elderly husband, Giorgio's father, Paolo, who is near death himself from a recent stroke and is unable to move or speak. Meanwhile, Hilda's son Mario is revealed to be having an affair with Giorgio's third wife, Lucy. Lucy is only a few years older than Rosie and is apparently the only one of the Mainardi family who shows any compassion for her presence. Giorgio's spirit remains conscious after death, and from his buried coffin, he tries to communicate with Rosie. He succeeds by entering her dreams and implores her to discover who in the family was responsible for his death. However, he tells her to hurry, for as his corpse rots away in the coffin, so does his power to communicate with his daughter. At the funeral, each of the family mourners thinks back to their relationship with the dead man. Lucy remembers his anger at her frigidity; Mario recalls how Giorgio humiliated and insulted him after he asked for financial help in obtaining a business position; Hilda fumes over the memory of Giorgio ordering the bank not to let her cash the checks from his sick father's account; and Rita, Giorgio's mistress, remembers being spurned when Giorgio rudely broke off their secret affair and decided to go back to his wife.