The Unseen (1980)

It doesn't happen often but, every once in a while, I'll learn about a movie from none other than the director themself. Case in point, when I first read Crystal Lake Memories back in early 2007, Danny Steinmann's interview in the chapter on Friday the 13th Part V began with him noting, "I had directed and wrote a movie called The Unseen, with Barbara Bach. I didn't get to do a cut of the movie because they wanted to get it out right away, so I took my name off of it. What was released was a bastardized version of my film. It wasn't my vision at all." I already knew about Steinmann's porn background when I first read the book, as well as an inkling of his bad behavior and drug problems during the making of Part V, so that short personal perspective of his on The Unseen was another indication of his short but tumultuous career and reputation. A few years later, I began listening to this horror podcast that I've mentioned many times before and learned a lot more about Steinmann and all of his movies as director due to how much the two hosts absolutely loved Part V. They eventually managed to interview him, and while I don't remember much of what he said about The Unseen, I do remember that he still had sore feelings about it. Some time later, when that movie was released on DVD by Code Red, the hosts reviewed it and that's when I learned of the basic plot, as well as what "the Unseen" itself actually was... and it sounded absolutely ridiculous. Not that I was expecting anything amazing from the director of Friday the 13th Part V (even though I do really enjoy that one) and Savage Streets, but what the hosts described, as hilarious as it was, given how hard they were laughing about it, sounded like one of the stupidest things imaginable. So, I was in no rush to see it for myself, and I didn't until 2023, when I found the Scorpion Blu-Ray release (I didn't plan to do three movies put out by them in a row; it just worked out that way) at that one vendor's table at G-Fest. Like a lot of the stuff I tended to find there, it wasn't something that was on my radar but I figured, "Eh, why not?", and picked it up, especially since it was cheap. Unfortunately, when I finally watched it that October, it would be forever tainted for me, as it was when I was watching the plethora of special features that night that I learned my good friend, Jeff Burr, had passed away. I know I shouldn't hold that against the movie, but that memory will always stick with it in my mind.

That really didn't do the movie many favors, as I already wasn't a big fan of it after watching it that afternoon. Truth be told, The Unseen is a strange movie to talk about, as it's very well-made for the most part, with a story that becomes increasingly unsettling and skin-crawling as it unfolds, and while the three young women who feature in it are rather thinly developed, with Barbara Bach's lead character having some unlikable aspects to her, it features some truly disturbing and effective performances by Sydney Lassick and Lelia Goldoni. However, the third act, specifically the climax, is the main reason why it lands here, in Schlocktober 2. Not only does the reveal of the Unseen, sure enough, make it hard to take much seriously from there on out, but the lead-up to it is also overlong and drawn out. There are other parts that are unintentionally funny, and while it's not as overall violent or scummy as you might expect from Steinmann (there is the expected scene of one of the women appearing completely naked), it's still unpleasant and mean-spirited at times, especially in regards to Lassick's character. Overall, it's certainly not one of the worst movies we're going to look at this month, but for me, I can't say I truly enjoy watching it.

Los Angeles television reporter Jennifer Fast, along with her sister, Karen, and friend, Vicki Thompson, travel to Solvang, which is hosting an annual Danish culture festival that Jennifer is doing a story on. But when they get there, Karen informs Jennifer that their hotel has lost their reservation, as well as that there isn't a single available room in town. After driving for a while, they find themselves in Los Alamos, a small, seemingly empty little town, and stop near a large, wood building. However, Jennifer learns from its owner, Ernest Keller, that it's actually a museum. He's still nice enough to call around for them, but is unable to find any vacancies. He then opts to let them stay overnight at his large farmhouse, where he lives with his wife, Virginia. Upon arriving and being shown to their room, Jennifer and Karen head back to Solvang to cover the festival, while Vicki, who isn't feeling well, stays behind. Virginia, whose relationship with Ernest turns out to be physically and mentally abusive on the latter's part, doesn't like the women being there, for fear that they may learn about a terrible, unspoken secret of theirs. Sure enough, while Vicki is sleeping after taking a bath, she's attacked by an intruder who enters the room through a large vent in the floor and is killed while being dragged down through it. Meanwhile, in town, Jennifer's estranged boyfriend, Tony, arrives to try to reconcile with her, and Jennifer has Karen go back to the house while they talk. There, Karen finds the place apparently empty, and is also killed by the same figure when he tries to pull her into the basement by her scarf. By the time Ernest returns home from the museum, he finds Virginia distraught over what's happened. Now, Ernest decides that, in order to keep their dark secret, which happens to be the end result of a decades-long incestuous relationship, Jennifer will have to die as well when she returns. And since she's angered Tony by rebuffing his attempt to get back with her, there may not be anyone left to come to her rescue.

The Unseen started out as a screenplay that was co-written by Kim Henkel, co-writer of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with Tobe Hooper, and another man named Michael Viner. However, it was extensively rewritten by Danny Steinmann and two other writers, Nancy Rifkin and Michael L. Grace, and neither Henkel nor Viner have any credits on the final film (their original screenplay, however, was adapted into a book around that same time called Deadly Encounter). Speaking of Steinmann, who was credited as "Peter Foleg" when he decided not to be associated with the film, it was his first "legit" movie as director after he'd made the porn movie, High Rise, although, in the interim, he'd been involved with other films and TV work, including a TV-horror movie for Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. As you often hear with him, he was far from the easiest director to work with, being described as someone who didn't know how to communicate with people, especially actors. In the special features on that Blu-Ray, Stephen Furst talks about how he got electrocuted by a fuse-box that Steinmann activated himself right when Furst hit it, and this was after Steinmann had asked him to trust him. Furst said they never spoke again after that. Also, the film's editor, Jonathan Braun, talks about how he was supposed to just be an assistant here, but ended up doing the whole movie because the original editor couldn't get along with Steinmann. I could go on but you can look this stuff up for yourself. All I'll say is that, given his reputation, and despite his having always said none of it was true, I believe the stories.

Like most, I know Barbara Bach best from The Spy Who Loved Me, and there's no doubt that, at the time, she was an incredibly beautiful woman. However, while her role here of Jennifer Fast, our ostensible lead, has more to her than the other women she's traveling with, she's still kind of flat. She's a Los Angeles TV newscaster who travels with her little crew to Solvang to cover the Danish culture festival, only for them to get there and learn, much to her aggravation, that their reservation has been lost and there's apparently not a free room within the entire area. But, when she meets Ernest Keller at his museum and he offers to have them stay the night at his home, Jennifer opts not to look a gift horse in the mouth. While her sister, Karen, is a little weirded out by both Ernest and his wife, Jennifer is at least grateful for a place to stay so she can do her job. But, while she and Karen are in town, her boyfriend Tony, whom she had a tense, silent exchange with when she left their apartment at the beginning, shows up to try to patch things up. Not at all happy about this, Jennifer initially refuses to speak with him, and tells Karen not to interfere in her affairs. In the end, she sends Karen back up to the house while she stays in town to talk to Tony. This is where she comes off as a bit unlikable, as the issue is that Tony, a former football player, injured his leg a year before and has become very difficult to live with. Fair enough, and Jennifer says that, despite his stubbornness, she still loves him... though, this after, when he first tries to talk with her, she says, "Oh, hi. Beat up on any more women today?" Granted, may he did hit her or some other woman in his frustration, but the problem is that they never say any more about it. Also, given how much Karen sticks up for Tony, something I doubt she'd do if he really did hit her sister or any other woman, it feels like Jennifer is just being an insensitive bitch. Then, when they're having dinner that night, you learn that she'd been pregnant and had an abortion, without letting Tony know. She says that she simply wanted to protect his feelings and didn't want to fight with him, and, to be fair, he found out because he was snooping around in her stuff, but this annoys me about as much when, in Black Christmas, Jess tells Peter that she's going to have an abortion, that he has no say in the matter, and that she wasn't even going to tell him about it. Not to get political but, while I'm all for women's rights, that attitude of, "The man is just the sperm donor, so he has no say in this at all," really irks me. And then, when Tony calls Jennifer out on how she once talked about wanting to get married and have kids, she explains she does want that but not at that moment, adding, "If you were working, involved with something you really loved, instead of just sitting around, expecting to be a star again, you'd understand." Again, she does have a point, but the way she said it, not surprisingly, makes Tony mad and he drives her back up to the house in a tense silence.

Thus, when Jennifer finds herself targeted for death by Ernest after Junior has killed Karen and Vicki, it seems as though no one is going to come and save her. He lures her down into the basement where Junior lives, under the pretense of needing her help for something, then pretends to go upstairs in order to get something he needs and locks her in. While roaming around down there, she first realizes that there's no way out, then finds Karen and Vicki's bodies, and finally meets Junior, the sight of whom

freaks her out. Even though he doesn't act truly threatening towards her, and tries to play with her, she's frightened by how unintentionally rough he is due to his size and childlike mindset, along with the knowledge that he killed the others. It doesn't help that she's also badly hurt her ankle by this point and can't walk, meaning she can't get away that easily. But when Ernest comes down to kill her when Junior doesn't, only to be stopped by Virginia, Jennifer manages to escape the basement and head outside, into the thunderstorm. In the end, she's stalked by Ernest, and she ultimately is not the one who saves herself, nor is Tony when he suddenly shows up.

In her fairly small amount of screentime, Jennifer's sister, Karen (Karen Lamm), proves to be a bit of a likable smartass. She's the one who breaks it to Jennifer that their hotel reservation in Solvang has been lost, asking her not to get mad at her over it, and when Jennifer asks if Karen told them who they are, she sarcastically answers, "Golly, no, Jennifer. I didn't think to do that. 'Course, I told them!" With Jennifer then opting to look elsewhere, Karen adds, "The really good news is... there's not a room left in town because of the festival." She later mistakes the museum that Ernest Keller runs for a hotel, calling it, "A swingin' place," and though Jennifer and Vicki are glad that they do get a place to stay out of this, Karen is a bit put off by both the farmhouse and their two hosts, whom she mocks in private. And once they've been shown to their room and are about to head back to Solvang, Vicki asks if they'll be able to get along without her, to which Karen melodramatically says, "Well, speaking only for myself, myself alone, I personally, Karen Fast, could never, ever get along without you." As they're covering the festival in town, with Karen acting as the camera operator, she spots Tony in the crowd, knowing that Jennifer is not going to like this. In her anger over this when she learns, Jennifer demands that Karen stay out of it and not talk to Tony. Instead, when Tony, whom Karen thinks is the best thing that ever happened to her sister, approaches her, the two of them have a very chummy interaction, much to Jennifer's disdain. Still, Karen doesn't stay quiet about it, and is sent back to the house while Jennifer talks with Tony privately. But, when she gets back to the house, Karen, after looking around and finding it seemingly empty, suffers the same fate that Vicki already has and falls prey to Junior.

As fairly two-dimensional as the two of them already are, Jennifer and Karen's friend, Vicki (Lois Young), is definitely the least developed of the three girls. Though she's part of Jennifer's little news crew, you never learn her exact function (maybe she's normally the camera operator and Karen has to fill in for her), as she opts to stay at the farmhouse rather than head back to town with them, as she's not feeling well. When they're gone, she decides to take a bath, providing Danny Steinmann's prerequisite of at least one instance of female nudity, and is also spied upon by Ernest when he brings them some blankets. Once she gets out of the bath, she puts on a nightgown and crawls into bed, only for Junior to enter the room through the large vent in the floor. She repeatedly tries to get away but he ultimately pulls her down through the vent, the grate of which slams down on her neck during the struggle, killing her.

Now, as much as I criticized Jennifer for her treatment of Tony (Douglas Barr), he's got plenty of issues of his own. The movie opens with him desperately trying to work out with his injured leg, an initial sign of what Jennifer later describes as his obsession to prove the doctors wrong. Moreover, when the two of them are walking around Solvang, she notes how it's been over a year now and it hasn't healed, but he still insists that it will. He then watches some kids playing in a park, as they happen to be tossing around a football, and you really see both how much this has deeply hurt him, as well as how unhealthy his obsession with it is. And speaking of unhealthy obsessions, whether or not he actually hit Jennifer or someone else, his driving from Los Angeles to Solvang in order to confront and try to win her back is a red flag. Moreover, while what she says to him when they're at the restaurant may be a low blow, his driving her back to the Keller farm, letting her out, and speeding off in anger, only to suddenly show back up some time later, adds more fuel to that fire. Finally, while he may show up as she's being pursued by the deranged, hatchet-wielding Ernest, he's anything but a hero. When he runs in to help, his leg gives out on him and he collapses, leading to someone else saving Jennifer. And while the two of them do leave together, now having something in common thanks to Jennifer's now badly sprained ankle, I don't give much for their chances once they get back home.

Far and away, the best-acted and most memorable, as well as disturbing and loathsome, character in the movie is Ernest Keller. If you know Sydney Lassick for anything, it's likely as Cheswick in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and there, he proved that he was a really intense actor who would go for it when a role required that kind of commitment. And he brings that same kind of intensity here, giving a performance that the movie, you could argue, is unworthy of. At first, Ernest seems like a friendly, welcoming person, as he politely greets Jennifer at the museum, informs her that it's not a hotel, and even calls around for her to see if he can find any vacancies. When he doesn't, he offers to have her and her companions stay at his home overnight, which Jennifer readily accepts. However, the first hint that there's something wrong is when he's shown talking to his wife, Virginia, over the phone, telling her that they're going to have guests, and he calmly but menacingly tells her, "Don't concern yourself with that, Virginia. Just get the room ready." You can detect a contained but building rage in his tone when he next tells her, "You're not listening to me. If you continue to refuse to listen to me, I will become very cross with you. Hmm. I don't suppose you would want that to happen, now, would you?" He then hangs up, leads the women up to his house, introduces them to the very demure and withdrawn Virginia, and shows them to their room, all the while maintaining that air of inviting friendliness he showed Jennifer. But, again, cracks begin to appear when, as he sits at the dinner table and Virginia takes his bowl away and brings him another one, he groans, "The soup was salty." After that, when Jennifer and Karen leave, he spies on Vicki as she's taking a bath when he brings them some blankets. The first truly disturbing moment with him comes when he suddenly shows up outside where Virginia is washing and hanging up clothes. He tries to entertain her by attaching clothespins to his face, but when she continues expressing concern over the women learning their dark secret, his rage starts to build, as he asks, "You're not suggesting... that I don't know what I'm doing, now, are you?" Virginia says, "No, no. It's just that, uh..." and Ernest screams, "It's just that what?!", then throws the pins at her. He immediately switches back, telling her not to worry, before kissing her forehead and heading back to the museum.

In a scene where he's sitting up in the building's attic, Ernest, who's more than a little drunk, relives a moment with his abusive father that reveals the extent of his depravity: he and Virginia are actually siblings. They had an ongoing incestuous relationship, one that was obviously predatory on Ernest's part, and their father discovered that he'd actually gotten her pregnant. Moreover, according to their father, Ernest threatened to kill Virginia if she told anyone, and when he planned to send Virginia away and castrate

Ernest, he murdered his father. At the end of the scene, it's revealed that he keeps his decaying corpse up in the attic, which is what he's been looking at and talking to this whole time. Upon remembering the murder, Ernest smiles creepily, and it also becomes clear that his father's own abuse influences the horrible way he treats Virginia, as he often talks to her in the same sort of passive-aggressive manner before exploding in rage. And also like his father, he tends to verbally abuse and beat his inbred son down in the

basement. When he returns to the house that night, Ernest, after playfully scaring Virginia and laughing himself sick about it, becomes angry when Virginia, who's in shock over Junior killing Vicki and Karen, won't answer him about what's wrong. First telling her to, "Get that stupid look off your face and answer me," he slaps her, then grabs and screams at her, demanding she tell him what's going on. She's only able to motion with her head, and when he then sees what's happened, he proceeds to go down into the basement, find Junior, and beat him with his belt.

Afterward, he tells Virginia, while wiping her face and talking to her in a manner that is so creepy, now that you know they're siblings, that Jennifer will have to die in order for their secret to remain hidden. Virginia lets out a mournful, "No," at this, and Ernest, naturally, becomes angered, growling, "That, assuredly, is the most asinine statement ever to have escaped from that delicate mouth of yours, my dear." He screams at her, then absolves himself of all guilt should the truth be revealed, saying that Virginia would spend the rest of her life in a mental asylum,

and Junior would suffer an even worse fate. This gets Virginia all the more upset and he makes her agree to go along with his plan to kill Jennifer. Once Jennifer arrives back at the house, Ernest lures her down into the basement, has her aid him in reattaching a large pipe, then leaves under the pretense of going to get some screws, only to lock her down there. He's seen casually eating an apple and walking around in the living room where Virginia is sitting (because of what we now know about him, his picking up one of the

dolls in that room comes off as creepy), as Jennifer begins to realize that she's stuck down there. And while Jennifer is meeting Junior, Ernest is shown attempting to make out with Virginia, only for her to defy him by spitting in his face. Amazingly, he doesn't flip out; he gently wipes his face and comments, "We must work on your manners later, my dear. I must go tidy up."

He goes back down into the basement and, after glancing at Jennifer, acts "playful" towards Junior, who's hiding from him because of his abuse. I put playful in quotation marks because his idea of playing with Junior is to go, "Boo!", at his hiding spot, as if the man-child isn't frightened of him enough already, and Ernest seems to enjoy it as well. But when Jennifer attempts to crawl away, Ernest removes his belt and tries to strangle her with it. Virginia then comes downstairs and stops him, and while Jennifer

tries to escape, the two of them fight, with Virginia clawing Ernest across the face. He, in turn, chokes and then punches her, which Junior sees and becomes enraged over, especially when it seems as though he may have killed her. Ernest, after getting charged at and knocked to the floor, tries to stop his angry son by saying it's just a game, but Junior continues attacking. When he's cornered and unable to escaped through the locked storm-doors,, Ernest resorts to hitting Junior in the head with a board, before mortally

wounding him by stabbing him in the head with another one that has a long nail sticking out of it. With that, and after cruelly shoving Virginia away when she charges at him for this, he goes after Jennifer, finding her hiding in the chicken-house, and then chases after her in the rain while wielding a hatchet. He corners and prepares to kill her, with Tony proving to be no help when he shows up and his leg fails him, but is killed himself when Virginia shoots him from the porch with a shotgun.

For much of the movie, poor Virginia (Lelia Goldoni) is an absolutely pitiable woman, with a very demure, soft-spoken, and reticent personality due to Ernest's constant abuse and the fear that, sooner or later, the outside world will find out about Junior. Speaking of which, while she, unlike Ernest, treats her inbred son with genuine love and warmth, the idea that she was preyed upon by her own brother for many years, became pregnant by him, and was forced to tell their father by his beating it out of her is absolutely deplorable. And now, years later, she's still being abused, both physically and sexually, by Ernest, often over the slightest infraction. On top of that, she learns early on that Junior has, unintentionally, killed one of their guests, whom Virginia didn't want there in the first place. She's so distraught about it that, when Karen comes back, she literally hides from her, and is unable to stop Junior from killing her as well. Virginia is then in such shock after that she can't speak, and has to endure Ernest yelling at and smacking her when he demands to know what's going on. After that, she listens to him beating on Junior down in the basement, the sound of which reduces her to tears. But she slowly begins reaching her breaking point when Ernest plans to murder Jennifer to keep the secret, using Junior's potential fate if he was discovered as a means of making her compliant. She starts to rebel against him, first by spitting in his face when he attempts to kiss her after he's locked Jennifer down in the basement, and then by stopping him when he's attempting to strangle her. She goes as far as to bite him in the shoulder to make him let go of Jennifer, stands in front of him to keep him from chasing her, and claws him across his left cheek during their confrontation. Though she gets choked out and punched to the floor, she awakens in time to see Ernest mortally wound Junior. Now both anguished and enraged, she attacks Ernest, who tosses her aside again and stalks after Jennifer outside. However, this doesn't deter Virginia, as she finally kills him by blasting him with a double-barrel shotgun, before going back down to mourn Junior.

While he's not an actual character in the story, and all we see of him are some old photographs, as well as his rotted corpse, we really get a sense of what a monstrous man Ernest and Virginia's father was during that scene in the attic. During the voiceover flashback of his and Ernest's fateful meeting back when the latter was 29 (whoever voiced him is uncredited), Keller initially comes off as a gruff but gregarious man, often laughing and complimenting his son for who he is in a doting tone. However, there are hints of the abusive, overbearing person he really was, as he tells Ernest, "What's that? I can't hear you," when he answers him in a low voice, and then snarls, "I thought I just told someone to sit!" He goes on to lament to his son about the state of his personal world, talks about when he married their mother and how much he loved her, and asks Ernest if he ever thinks of getting married one day, only to then say he's probably too busy with looking after their house and taking care of his sister. That's when Keller reveals why he wanted to talk with Ernest, saying he found out about Virginia's pregnancy by beating it out of her (he further describes her as a, "Poor, dumb child,"), and immediately suspected that it was Ernest's doing, which he was right about (as well as about Ernest being a, "Real lowlife piece of scum,"). Keller, now enraged about both the deed and his knowing that Ernest threatened Virginia if she told, mentions sending Virginia away to, "Have that problem taken care of," before ordering Ernest to pull down his pants so he could ensure something like this never happened again. That led to the fight where Ernest ultimately killed his father.

Wisely, the Unseen himself, Junior (Stephen Furst), is kept completely offscreen until the third act, with no glimpses of him at all when he kills Vicki and Karen, or when Virginia and Ernest go down into the basement. But when you finally do see him, he, sad to say, badly sinks the movie. You know what he is long before then, due to the revelation about Ernest and Virginia's hideous past, but still, with little over a half hour left, Jennifer is locked down in the basement and is eventually chased by this overgrown, mentally-stunted, mongoloid man-child who can't talk, constantly makes silly-sounding guttural grunting and cooing sounds, and runs around in a dirty, tattered white shirt and a similarly ratty adult diaper, which has some very obvious, and large, stains on the back. When you first really see him, he's stomping around in place, groaning and gesturing wildly with both his arms and head at a sparking fuse-box that Jennifer slammed into and dislodged, then plays around with it and gets all excited. He literally acts like an adult-sized toddler: he runs around the basement, grabs and tries to make Jennifer take a ratty old teddy bear, which he then takes back and stuffs down the front of his diaper, messes around with a big train that he pushes around, tumbles across the floor when he slips and falls, goes, "Ooh, hoo-hoo!", at this, and claps his hands. He tries to play with the frightened Jennifer, as he sits down beside her, sniffs her hair, gently smacks her shoulder when she pushes him away, and plays with her hair by taking it and putting it over his own head. However, he gets mad when she keeps rebuffing him, and then runs and hides when Ernest comes downstairs. 

There is some pathos to be had with Junior, given how his very existence came about for horrible reasons and how he's kept down in the basement all the time, not knowing if he's going to be fed by Virginia or beaten on by Ernest. You also get the sense that his killing Vicki and Karen were completely unintentional, as he was just trying to play with them and likely got mad when they resisted. Speaking of which, when Ernest seemingly kills Virginia, Junior's anguish and rage is palpable, and it

is sad when his father shows how truly selfish and uncaring he is towards him (not that we didn't already know that) when he opts to mortally wound him with that board with the nail, even if it is in self-defense. However, for the most part, I just laugh at the sight of Junior. The makeup design by Craig Reardon isn't bad at all, and Furst's performance is more than likely true to life (in fact, I'm very sure it is), as he said he visited a home for mentally-challenged people, but for the most part, Junior really hurts the movie's overall effectiveness.

Though Danny Steinmann was hardly a master craftsman, be it technically or emotionally, The Unseen is quite well-constructed and shot. In fact, the opening makes for a nice example of visual storytelling, one that is actually akin to that of Rear Window (I know I'm going to get smacked in the mouth for making that comparison), starting on the Los Angeles skyline at sunrise, transitioning to inside Jennifer and Tony's apartment, where heavy, labored breathing can be heard as we see close-ups of a picture of Jennifer, photos of Tony in his football

prime, the prizes both of them have won during their respective careers, and a photo of them together, looking very happy. Given that information, as well as knowing who the director is, your first instinct would be that you're hearing the two of them having sex, but then, the camera shows some abstract sculptures of running figures, focusing on their bent knees, with Tony in the background, and it cuts to him as he desperately tries to raise a weight with his foot. The film shows us a close-up of a scar on his leg, giving us a pretty conclusive hint as to what's

going on, and it cuts to Jennifer in the bathroom, just as she's finished getting ready to leave for Solvang. As she heads out, she and Tony exchange silent but glaring expressions, letting us know that there's some tension between them. and Jennifer storms out, gets in a car waiting below, and drives off, while up in the apartment, Tony, after watching her leave, goes over to her desk and looks through her stuff, finding that Solvang is written down as her destination. It cuts to the inside of a big horn, then to Karen as she goes to

tell Jennifer that their reservation has been lost, giving us a glimpse of the festival that's in town. Granted, the skilled editing and construction of this scene may be due more to editor Jonathan Braun than Steinmann, especially given how much the latter hated the final film and said he wasn't involved in the editing, but I still have to compliment the film on this, regardless.

A similarly well-constructed scene is the one where Ernest is up in the museum's attic, remembering what happened between him and his father years before. It starts with a series of shots of the building's exterior, its front door with the "CLOSED" sign up, the immediate interior, a closed off section of stairs, and the attic door, with an open latch and padlock, before cutting to a close-up of Ernest's hand holding a glass of booze, a shot of his cat licking an old boot, and finally, a shot of him sitting in a chair in the middle of the room, all while old-fashioned music can be heard

playing nearby. That's when the voiceover of the memory of Ernest's father speaking to him begins, and while the scene mainly stays focused on Ernest, as he talks with his father as though he's actually there, answering his questions, it also cuts to shots of photos depicting his father's wartime service, including a shot of him in uniform, another old photo of his mother when they were married, other such pictures, the old camera that took them, and various other objects and trinkets linked to the war, covered in

cobwebs. After that, it focuses mostly on Ernest's face, as his father can be heard admonishing him for impregnating his own sister, then threatening to send Virginia away and castrate him. When Ernest remembers murdering his father, it cuts frantically to an old knife, close-ups of the cat sitting nearby as she, rather menacingly, looks at Ernest (Braun said he put that in because he had nothing else to cut to), and a montage that reveals his father's corpse is kept up

there, with a knife still sticking in his rotted throat. As I said, the scene ends with Ernest smiling creepily, and again, its effectiveness is likely more due to Braun, as well as Sydney Lassick's acting, than anything Steinmann did.

The movie is also fairly well-shot by cinematographer Roberto A. Quezada, with plenty of nice looks at the actual town of Solvang, the farmhouse, and the surrounding countryside, as well as some effectively uncomfortable images such as a close-up of Ernest's mouth as he talks to Virginia over the phone and his peeping at Vicki through the keyhole as she's taking a bath. Like I said, the film wisely keeps Junior literally unseen for the most part, only hinting at his presence with shots of the vents in the floor moving, his attack on Vicki being portrayed completely through her

reactions and attempts to escape, as is the scene where he kills Karen, and the early scenes where Ernest and Virginia go down into the basement to see him being executed through what we hear from the first floor, as the camera often merely lingers on the stairs leading down there. And going back to the editing, during the lead-up to when Junior enters the girls' room, it cuts back and forth from a close-up of Vicki sleeping to a shot of a hatchet sticking in a stump in the chicken house, which Virginia then

walks in and removes. Following the shot of the vent grate moving slowly, it cuts to Virginia sharpening the hatchet, and when Junior comes in and attacks Vicki, eventually pulling her down through the vent and accidentally killing her, it cuts back and forth to Virginia grabbing at and beheading a chicken, with the grate coming down on Vicki's head right as Virginia brings the hatchet down on the chicken's (the latter of which I'm terrified might be an actual

instance of animal cruelty, as it looks quite real, despite the slow-motion). Also, when Karen is on her way back to the house, her driving up the road towards it is inter-cut with Virginia finding and being horrified by Junior's having killed Vicki. However, like the last few movies we've talked about, there are many instances of overdone slow-motion here, often during the very dramatic moments. I'm sure you're tired of me harping on this, but I can't help it; it just comes off as cheesy to me.

This is a rare example of a movie being shot in some of the very locations where it takes place, specifically Solvang, California for all of the scenes set during the Danish culture festival and which, as Jennifer herself comments while doing her news report, manages to maintain the feeling of its roots, from the architecture of the buildings to the costumes and traditions of the locals. Besides the scenes in the street, Jennifer and Tony go to a nice little park during their walk, and the two of them have their little falling out while sitting in a restaurant that seems posh enough, although all

you see of it is the spot by the window where they're sitting. Moreover, the small, practically deserted little community of Los Alamos where Ernest's museum is located near his and Virginia's farmhouse was the actual place in reality, with the museum's exteriors being a real, old building there. Both of these townships are a far cry from where the movie opens in Los Angeles, in Tony and Jennifer's apartment, which is a pretty high income type of place, with a large window, stretching along the back of the room,

allowing for a nice view of the city skyline. (Strangely, among the various items decorating the space, which I described earlier, is a homely little statue among the plants near Tony's workout area that, for all intents and purposes, looks like Junior. If anyone knows what culture that thing is from or what it's actually meant to represent, let me know.)

We don't see much of the inside of Ernest's hotel-turned-museum, but it's just as old-fashioned as its exterior, albeit much nicer-looking, with a mostly red color scheme, lots of classy furniture, lovely chandeliers, and those very early style of telephones. A picture of Ernest's father is seen in the main lobby, and there's also that cat that tends to roam around inside, both of which are a precursor to the scene in the attic, which is revealed to be full of all sorts of old photos and mementos from his father's time in the war, as well as where Ernest keeps his decaying

corpse. At the end of a dirt road heading up a hill near Los Alamos is his and Virginia's equally impressive farmhouse, which is two-stories tall and also seems to have a spot for a large attic all its own, although no scene takes place up there. It looks just as nice on the inside, with a big dining room and old, classic country kitchen; a big, mostly empty room with a fireplace and a chair sitting in the middle of it, as well as a covered table in the back, which Ernest says is where gala balls were held; a sitting room filled with

antiques and trinkets, including a music-box that's shape like a small piano and some antique dolls; and a small but comfortable bedroom with a connecting bathroom that the girls are meant to stay in. However, the very large, dirt- and cobweb-covered basement area, where Junior is kept, is, as expected, filled with an assortment of junk and trash, including a big heap of old paper, clothes, and blankets where he tends to hide from Ernest. It also has a very large pipe leading upwards into the house, which is likely how he's able to sneak into various rooms through the vent system.

Another surprising thing about The Unseen is that, the beheading of the chicken notwithstanding, it's not nearly as violent or bloody as you might expect. That applies to the deaths of Vicki and Karen, with the latter getting some blood on her face but not much otherwise. In fact, while the lead-ups to those deaths are decently executed, with Vicki getting chased around the room and trying to escape, and Karen fighting against Junior as he tries to pull her down the vent by her scarf, the end results, with Vicki's head sticking out of the vent in the room and Karen's face

planting into the grating, look kind of silly to me. The only truly bloody moments come during the climax, with Junior getting that nail driven into his head and pulling it out, Virginia clawing the left side of Ernest's face, and his getting shot to death by her at the end, and even then, the makeup effects aren't much to write home about. However, the film is still rather unpleasant to watch at points, with its themes of abuse of various kinds, and of both children and adults, as well as incest and rape. As I've already

described, those scenes between Ernest and Virginia are especially unsettling, made all the more so when he attempts to make her laugh, only for her to say or do something that sets him off and makes him yell at or even slap her. And on top of that, you have the theme of cycles of abuse passing from parent to child, with Ernest being awful not only to Virginia but also Junior, being passive-aggressive and manipulative towards him before verbally and physically abusing

him, and even seeming to take sadistic joy in it, the same way his own father was with him. While it's explored well enough and doesn't quite reach the point where it feels like the film is wallowing in it, this subject matter is so uncomfortable in any context that it's one of the reasons why I don't care much for the film.

Besides the bland protagonists, how utterly ridiculous Junior is, and the icky subject matter, another reason why I'm not big on The Unseen is part of the third act, specifically the section from when Jennifer is locked down into the basement to when Junior appears. What's crazy is that it's not even that long of a stretch, just six minutes or so, and the movie, so far, has been well-paced, but this feels like an eternity, as all you're doing is watching Jennifer wander around the dark basement, slowly but surely realizing she's trapped down there, and finding Vicki and Karen's bodies,

before Junior, who was watching her, pops up and chases her. This leads into her hurting her ankle (the way it turns when she takes a bad step is truly wince-inducing) and falling into the fuse-box, most of which is done in that crappy-looking slow-motion, with Junior then playing around with the fuse-box and trying to play with her. Again, that scene is entertaining for how unintentionally funny Junior is in the way he looks and acts, and things really start to pick back up when Ernest comes downstairs, tries to strangle Jennifer, only for Virginia to intervene, and

the two of them get into a fight that leads to Ernest incurring Junior's wrath when he hurts Virginia. After all the horrible things he's done, it is cathartic to see Junior chase him around the basement, corner him, bite his leg, give him a vicious bear hug, and go in for the kill, but then, Ernest kills him with that board with the nail. He chases after Jennifer, who managed to crawl upstairs and outside, and finds her hiding in the little chicken-house. There's a genuinely funny moment from Ernest when he opens the door, clucks

loudly and startles the chickens, and, knowing that Jennifer is in there, comments, "'Nobody here but us chickens,' huh?" He casually walks in, singing to himself, takes some feed from a bucket, and tosses it to the chickens, then turns, looks right at Jennifer, clucks, laughs at her, and goes back about his business, albeit in a more crazed manner. Jennifer, spying the nearby hatchet, tries to go for it, but Ernest sees her, grabs for it as well, and manages to wrest it from her. She gets a lucky break when some bags

tumble on top of him during their struggle and stumbles outside, into the rainstorm, only to fall into the mud. She crawls through it, as Ernest walks after her with the hatchet (this is very reminiscent of Roy stalking after Pam in the rain in Friday the 13th Part V), which is when Tony shows up and attempts to run in and make the save, only for his leg to give out on him. But then, Virginia shoots Ernest just as he's about to kill Jennifer, Jennifer and Tony manage to get away, and Virginia goes back inside and down into the basement, where she cradles her dead son's body in her arms.

The music score is the work of Welsh-born Michael J. Lewis who, back in 1973, scored the Vincent Price movie, Theater of Blood. His music for The Unseen is far from amazing but it works well enough, and is surprisingly subdued for the most part, with the opening played to a very low-key, uneasy-sounding piece that hints at the unspoken tension between Jennifer and Tony; some similarly subtle, uncomfortable themes for when the girls first come upon the museum, when Ernest is seen talking on the phone with Virginia, and when he spies on Vicki while she's bathing (which is punctuated by a little bit of sleazy music as well); and soft, poignant sounds for the scenes with Jennifer and Tony later on. Moreover, even the more fast-paced and frantic scenes, while still scored with appropriate music, aren't as loud and bombastic as you might expect, and Lewis comes up with an appropriately bizarre yet childish motif for Junior, as well as a melody for the little music box in the one room, which Ernest hums to himself while looking for Jennifer in the chicken-house. Really, it's only during the climax when the music gets pretty big and loud, punctuating the final confrontation between Ernest and Virginia, and the fateful battle between Ernest and Junior, and even then, the ending credits are again scored in a very subtle manner, as well as melancholic, emphasizing the final image of Virginia cradling Junior's body.

As you've undoubtedly grasped by this point, The Unseen is definitely one of the more watchable movies we've looked at this month, as it's well-shot and nicely constructed through the editing, manages to not be as overtly violent and scummy as the reputation and personality of its director would have you think, makes good use of its locations and settings, features some very effective performances by Sydney Lassick and Lelia Goldoni, and has a fair music score. However, it's hurt by its female protagonists, who are far from the greatest, with our ostensible lead having some unlikable qualities about her and being caught up in an unhealthy relationship; some death scenes that end up coming off as more silly than horrific; some very corny, old-fashioned slow-motion; a third act that drags at points; and the revelation about the identity of the titular entity, which turns out to be completely ridiculous and nigh impossible to take seriously. What's more, while it doesn't get too exploitative with it, the movie still delves into some subject matter that makes me really uncomfortable and less willing to want to revisit it. There are worse things to talk about during Schlocktober, yes, but this is another example of a flick that, while I can compliment what it does right, isn't my cup of tea.