This ad for Beyond the Door II was one of a trio from the first half of 1979 that I remember creeping me out so bad that I was afraid to look at them, for fear of being attacked by whatever horrors were being promised to their potential viewers.

Yet, I could not NOT look at them…

Although it was released in the United States as Beyond the Door II, the film is not a sequel. Its original title was Schock, but distributor Film Ventures International thought it best to capitalize on the name recognition from one of their bigger box office successes of the mid 1970s. So it goes.

Shock, as it is now known, would also be the last directing credit for the legendary Mario Bava. While this film does not reach the atmospheric levels of Bava’s earlier classics, it does manage to have one of the most artfully crafted jump scares in all of horror cinema. One so effective that it has been carbon copied innumerable times.