I am new to the films of Darren Ward.
Hearing about the production of this one from online sources, from his production company Giallo Films, I was pleased to see genre favorite Giovanni Lombardo Radice in the cast, playing a slimy gangland boss, and trying to control his mob of bully boys against the competition.
Giovanni is well versed in on screen violent films, having carved a career in Italian horrors and thrillers, with the likes of Lucio Fulci's City of the Living Dead, Umberto Lenzi's Cannibal Ferox, and Michele Soavi's Stage Fright, as well as titles like House by the Edge of the Park and Cannibal Apocalypse.
He is clearly enjoying chewing the scenery in Beyond Fury, adding a little camp too, and fully aware of the underlying silliness of it all. He's a butcher, and a thug, and a low-life, but he has style, and wants things done right.
This looks a very polished effort from Darren, with real attention to scene setups, editing, scoring, and photography, as well as the expected mind blowing gore effects, which really are wince inducing and realistic, to the point of revulsion.
Darren is clearly totally in love with film, film making, and horror and violence. He has spent the last 20 years putting together movies that wallow in as much blood and gore as possible, and the mafia style gangland storylines are his way of getting that violence on the screen.
His first major effort, Sudden Fury - 1997, had a sadly unwell David Warbeck in the lead as chief villain, who again camped up the scenes of torture and violence to make them almost parody. The rest of the acting talent from that film were largely embarassingly awful, with some of the naffest dialogue and delivery I've ever seen.
Thankfully, moving on with better facilities, more money and a better story, 2010's A Day of Violence was Darren's follow up title. A much pacier and more believable tale of a debt collector for loan sharks, striking it lucky in finding a stash of £100,000 on a job, but not so lucky when he decides to keep it, and has to fight his own gangland bosses who are unaware he has double-crossed them.
Luckily, we had a return from Giovanni Lombardo Radice again in this film, playing a burned out drug lord, reduced to a pitiful existence in a rancid flat, who finally reaches his comeuppance at the hands of Mitchell - the nearest thing to a hero in the piece.
Darren's films are certainly not going to be for everybody.
Fans of The Krays style violence in British gangland thrillers, or Get Carter/Villain style thuggery, won't be prepared for the level of nastiness seen in this trilogy.
Yes, there are juicy bullet hits and slit throats of course, but that is just the start of it.
Here we have anything from hammer blows and saws, blowtorches, and garden shears, all deployed on the most sensitive body parts imaginable, in lingering close up, and accompanied by the levels of blood you'd expect in a Sam Raimi zombie movie.
It's all very well done, but stomach churningly so, the the level of such extremes, that I am very suprised these titles got by with 18 ratings from the BBFC.
Enjoy, but approach with caution.