The Unseen (1980)

A television reporter (Barbara Bach) and her two friends head to Solvang, California to cover a Danish festival. When there is a mix-up at the hotel and they are left without hotel rooms, the girls accept the invitation of a friendly museum owner to board at his large farmhouse because the rest of the motels in and around town are sold out. But unknown to the women, something is living in the basement of the house. Their stay soon becomes a horrific nightmare when, one by one, they encounter the 'unseen'.

Starring: Barbara Bach (THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, CAVEMAN), Stephen Furst (NATIONAL LAMPOON S ANIMAL HOUSE, MIDNIGHT MADNESS), Doug Barr (FALL GUY, DEADLY BLESSINGS), Sydney Lassick (ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, CARRIE)

Directed by Danny Steinmann (SAVAGE STREETS, FRIDAY THE 13TH NEW BEGINNING) Product Description

The Unseen is not woth seeing.

The Unseen is an obscure b-movie from the early 80's and it just got re-released by Code Red, Code Red has a developing reputation for cult films but occasionally they would release a film that's so bad it doesn't deserve to be released in the first place like this film and Don't Go In The Woods Alone. An attractive blond TV reporter named Jennifer Fast (Barbara Bach) and her two assistants visit the town of Solvang, California to cover the Danish festival. They find themselves without a place to spend the night and are thankful when a friendly local named Ernest Keller (Sydney Lassick) invites them to spend the night at his farmhouse, a Victorian style residence. Ernest lives with his wife Virginia who seems to hide something and ghosts of a tragic past. The women don't realize that something horrible is hiding in the basement, something that is horribly-deformed and mentally ill. This offspring of inbreeding isn't going to stay in the cellar much longer . . . I'll be honest I was so disappointed with this film thinking that I might have stumbled upon a gem or a cult classic but the film stinks, there was no atmosphere and the cinematography was flat and dull (it looked like a t.v. movie), and the acting was just as bad especially from Sydney whom you might recognise from One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, he was so unconvincing and lame. The storyline was also unoriginal and it took way too long for anything good to happen and when it does it just didn't keep my interest. If your looking for some gore then don't bother with this, the death scenes were pathetic (death through air vent?) it was just plain daft. I don't usually mind a horror film that uses suspense and scares instead of gore but The Unseen failed miserably in that department. I have another dvd from Code Red and I hope it doesn't turn out as dull as this, The Dead Pit should be interesting since the trailer looked promising. Overall I would have to say that the film was an utter waste of time and it's better if you stay far, far away from this rubbish horror flick and get something else. October 16, 2008

I've been waiting since the VHS era!

I haven't seen this movie since I viewed it on cable 25 years ago. But something about it has always haunted me. I'll know whether I've been haunted by babes in bathtubs or by horror brilliance when I finally get to see it again. Can't wait! August 20, 2008

this horror masterpiece works on many levels

The Unseen is another of my personal favorites, outstanding on every level. Yes, the story is basic Horror Film 101. Three TV newsgals drive to Solvang, California to do a puff piece on a folk festival. All the local hotels are booked so, while searching for a hotel outside of town, they stumble upon one run by Ernest Keller (Sydney Lassick).

Turns out the hotel is a museum. No matter. Ernest invites the newsgals to stay at his house, with him and his wife, Virginia (Lelia Goldoni). Unbeknownst to the newsgals, husband and wife are also brother and sister. And lurking in the basement, crawling through the air ducts, is the spawn of their unholy union ... unseen!

Well, you'll see him eventually. But before you do, the body count mounts! (You know how those mutant spawn-of-incest retards get when they see nekkid women passing by their air ducts.) Actually, the body count doesn't mount by all that much. There are only three newsgals, after all. But there's enough in The Unseen to make up for the low score.

Yes, The Unseen's premise and story are easy to mock. They sound so formulaic. Yet the film's execution raises it to a masterpiece of the formula.

Barbara Bach (still the best Bond girl -- The Spy Who Love Me) is the lead newsgal, Jennifer Fast. Granted, Bach's acting range is limited, but she is stunning to behold. And she improves in the final half hour, when all that's required is to scream and cower. Bach can deliver if a script is within her range; she was dead-on as the smart, stoic Soviet spy in the Bond film.

Fortunately for Bach, she spends the first hour surrounded by poor performers, so she looks fine by comparison. Bach's love interest, Tony (Doug Barr), is the sort of jejune Ken doll that Mary Richards always dated on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The other two newsgals, Karen Lamm and Lois Young, are no better.

As is often the case in horror, it's the villains that show range, depth, and emotional strength. Sydney Lassick is wonderfully creepy as Ernest. Smarmy with the newsgals, babbling giddy nonsense. His unstable volatility with his family pivots from giddy to cold to cruel to violently hysterical. Dark emotions simmer beneath Lassick's assumed demeanors, erupting when provoked.

Lelia Goldoni's Virginia is an aging mouse of a woman. Yet she too can erupt into hysteria, or show tender compassion to her mutant son.

But it is Stephen Furst (Animal House) who shines as Junior Keller ... the unseen. One critic described Junior as a "murderous, retarded, overweight, full-grown baby." That's kinda what Junior looks like, but not really what he is. Having seen The Unseen a dozen or so times, I suspect he kills the women by accident. He merely wants a closer look (at Lamm's golden hair, for instance), and pulls too hard. A child who doesn't know his own strength. And he's not a "full-grown baby," he just looks like one because he's fat, dressed in soiled diaper-like rags, and he can't talk. He can only grunt.

Okay actors. Here's an assignment: Portray a sympathetic mutant retard killer, while wearing soiled diaper-like rags, in makeup that makes you look like some ugly incestuous spawn from Deliverance. And all you're allowed to do is grunt. Grunt and stomp and pound and grunt. And oh yeah, try and be nuanced and subtle.

Furst does it.

His Junior is ugly and frightening, yet we detect his motivations beneath his grunting and stomping. His frustrated ineffectual attempts to communicate with Bach and recruit her for his playmate. His love for mom. His fear, then anger, at dad. However repulsive and scary and unsympathetic Junior initially appears, his demise is poignant. I hesitate to equate Furst's Junior with Karloff's Monster, but I also hesitate to dismiss the comparison out of hand.

The script is tightly structured, its elements falling neatly together despite more complexity than cursorily appears. You can view The Unseen many times, and still discover new things to appreciate.

E. Michael Jones, in his Monsters From the Id: The Rise of Horror in Fiction and Film, interprets all horror as a monster (nemesis) spawned by a transgression of God's (sexual) moral code. The Unseen easily allows for that interpretation. Junior is born of incest, most likely rape. Bach contemplates an abortion because she is not ready to marry Barr until he matures. She is rescued moments after Barr returns (having changed his mind), thereby affirming their mutual love (and by implication, obviating the need for an abortion).

Jones is a social conservative. But a left-feminist could interpret The Unseen from an opposing view: as a condemnation of patriarchy. Junior is (most likely) the result of rape. Goldoni's father had wanted Junior aborted, so perhaps it was Goldoni's "choice" to birth Junior (although maybe it was the domineering Lassick's choice). Lassick oppresses both his wife/sister and son, until her self-liberation. It is Goldoni who saves Bach (Barr tries, but fails).

Both interpretations are justifiable. Indeed, the deceptively simple story elements mesh so nicely, one could fill a lecture hall with politically diverse academics and spend a semester conferencing on The Unseen's "real meaning."

Don't forget to invite some Freudians. Lassick's dad tried to castrate him for raping sis. So Lassick killed dad, then married sis and had Junior. The mummified dad is kept in the museum (shades of Norman Bates).

Lassick's memories of that fateful day is a nice example of pragmatic aesthetics. The actor playing the father is not present, just his voiceover within Lassick's guilty conscience. It's not only cheaper to film with one less actor, it works within the story. Lassick sits on a chair, talking to a voiceover of his dad. The camera pans and cross-cuts as dad's "character" is created by mementos, voiceover, and Lassick's frightened responses.

Mise-en-scene, lighting, and editing are all stellar in The Unseen, even if at times obvious and by-the-book. A sudden rainstorm when the story darkens. The cross-cutting between Goldoni's killing of a chicken and Junior's killing of a woman. The flickering electrical light upon our first seeing "the unseen" Junior. The quickening cross-cutting about the museum (and cat) leading to a slow revelation of the mummy. The murky atmospheric lighting in the museum in contrast to the cheerful brightness of Solvang.

Solvang is a nice touch. Low-budget horror films are forever seeking ways to separate themselves from the pack. Solvang is an actual town founded along old Dutch lines, with Dutch folk festivals and all. This locale, while not integral to the story, provides a fresh backdrop to horror. I told you The Unseen succeeds on every level. August 8, 2008

The Unseen

(spoilers) "The Unseen" is about three female news reporters traveling to Northern California to document a festival. After finding no place left to stay, they accept the offer of a weird old guy at his house. There doesn't seem to be much, except for some foreshadowing here and there. Eventually, two of the women go out to do a report on the festival, while the other stays at the house, feeling a little sick. Not too long after, she is killed in a very cheesy murder scene. It looked like she was attacked by a vicious vacuum, because you just saw her getting tugged around, then pulled into the vent.

The movie doesn't go far from there. Another woman returns to the house. There's a small amount of suspense before she too is killed by having her scarf pulling into the vent while she picked up some fruit she knocked over. Whoever--or whatever--was pulling her scarf into the vent slammed her face against it a few times. I guess that killed her.

The third one eventually comes home. It took a while, because her lover came to see her. They talked about him and his bad knee and the girl told him she had an abortion. It was pretty boring. Back at the house, the two hosts were acting all weird, back and forth. I felt bad for the wife.

Finally, our heroine comes home, finding the male host down in the basement fixing a pipe of some sorts. She gets locked down there, and thus the "horror" begins. Though, it soon turns funny, as she and Junior--the unseen one, I guess--play a few games. This even drags on, but eventually, it gets sort of good in the end, between the father and that same girl. I don't know how the boyfriend, gets there, but there's a great twist involving his injured knee. I thought that was good. And the final ending was really creepy. I don't fully recommend this one, though. It's a bit of a disappointment, unless you are looking for a slow, too melodramatic movie. July 20, 2008

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