The Unseen (1980)

The story here revolves around 3 women from a television station that head out to a small town to cover a festival, one of which is portrayed by the lovely Barbara Bach.  Somehow they manage to screw up their hotel reservations and have no room.  Desperate for somewhere to stay they take up a creepy old guy on his offer to stay at his home.  Of course something really bad happened in the past and now there is someone unseen (see how it ties into the title) in the house stalking them.  Toss in an ex-football player boyfriend that almost comes to the rescue and some quirky characters as an added bonus. 

Most fans are familiar with this one due to the controversy surrounding the director, Danny Steinmann, having his name taken off the movie when the producers started meddling with the final cut of the film.  He has taken a lot of heat for this, but after watching the movie I can see his point.  The story has a strange vibe to it that I was really enjoying.  It is really hard to describe, but the movie just feels a bit sleazy.  You have some good nudity, and when the big plot twist is revealed the movie delivers some twisted fun.  I also thought the characters of Ernest and Virginia were a lot of fun in their own odd off kilter way.  But at the same time there seems to be something missing.  At times the Unseen seems like it is building up to a great mean spirited kill or perhaps a great scare then pulls back.  Personally I kept waiting for something to happen that would grab me or sell the movie.  It just never gets there.

I was also a bit disappointed in the special effects.  There is an interesting kill involving a heating grate, but other then that there is nothing memorable here.  Actually there isn’t anything to the kills at all.  There are just a few and they all happen off screen, except for the one I’ve already mentioned.  I get the feeling that they were going for more of a thriller with some tense moments.  But the movie never delivers those, so some gore would have helped immensely.  The other thing that just killed the movie for me is the look of the killer.  SPOILER ALERT:  Stephen Furst in a diaper just isn’t scary.  In fact his appearance has quite the opposite effect and had me laughing every time he was on screen.  If the movie were being played for laughs this would have been okay.  Since they seemed to have been going for a serious scary flick it just doesn’t work.

Flaws and all I still had fun with the Unseen.   Honestly though it does seem like a movie that isn’t quite sure what it wants to be.  I’m guessing this might be due to the interference that Danny Steinmann ran into with the final cut.  This is too bad because he might have been onto something.  In the end what could have been something really cool ends up average.

2 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer

© Copyright 2010 John Shatzer