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5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
A creepy, perverse and underrated early 80's horror sleeper, 31 March 2007
8/10
Author: Woodyanders (Woodyanders@aol.com) from The Last New Jersey Drive-In on the Left

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Los Angeles TV news reporter Jennifer (the beautiful Barbara Bach of "The Spy Who Loved Me" fame) and her two assistants Karen (the appealingly spunky Karen Lamm) and Vicki (the pretty Lois Young, who not only gets killed first, but also bares her yummy bod in a tasty gratuitous nude bath scene) go to Solvang, California to cover an annual Danish festival. Since all the local hotels are booked solid, the three lovely ladies are forced to seek room and board at a swanky, but foreboding remote mansion owned by freaky Ernest Keller (deliciously played to geeky perfection by the late, great Sydney Lassick) and his meek sister Virginia (a solid Lelia Goldoni). Unfortunately, Keller has one very nasty and lethal dark family secret residing in his dank basement: a portly, pathetic, diapered, incest-spawned man-child Mongoloid named Junior (an alternately touching and terrifying portrayal by Stephen Furst; Flounder in "Animal House"), who naturally gets loose and wreaks some murderous havoc. Capably directed by Danny Steinmann, with uniformly fine acting from a sturdy cast, a compellingly perverse plot, excellent make-up by Craig Reardon, a nicely creepy atmosphere, a wonderfully wild climax, a slow, but steady pace, likable well-drawn characters, and a surprisingly heart-breaking final freeze frame (the incest subplot packs an unexpectedly strong and poignant punch), this unjustly overlooked early 80's psycho sleeper is well worth checking out.

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5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
GET this film if you can find it, 4 April 2006
8/10
Author: snausworldlove from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Get this film if at all possible. You will find a really good performance by Barbara Bach, beautiful cinematography of a stately (and incredibly clean) but creepy old house, and an unexpected virtuoso performance by … "The Unseen". I picked up a used copy of this film because I was interested in seeing more of Bach, whom I'd just viewed in "The Spy Who Loved Me." I love really classically beautiful actresses and appreciate them even more if they can act a little. So: we start with a nice fresh premise. TV reporter Bach walks out on boyfriend and goes to cover a festival in a California town, Solvang, that celebrates its Swedish ancestry by putting on a big folk festival. She brings along a camerawoman, who happens to be her sister, and another associate. (The late Karen Lamm plays Bach's sister, and if you know who the celebrities are that each of these ladies is married to, it is just too funny watching Bach (Mrs. Ringo Starr) and Lamm (Mrs. Dennis Wilson) going down the street having a sisterly quarrel.)) Anyway … Bach's disgruntled beau follows her to Solvang, as he's not done arguing with her. There's a lot of feeling still between them but she doesn't wanna watch him tear himself up anymore about his down-the-drain football career. The ladies arrive in Solvang to do the assignment for their station, only to find their reservations were given away to someone else. (Maybe to Bach's boyfriend, because think of it – where's he gonna stay?). The gals ask around but there is just nowhere to go. Mistakenly trying to get into an old hotel which now serves only as a museum, they catch the interest of proprietor Mr. Keller (the late Sidney Lassick), who decides to be a gentleman and lodge them at his home, insisting his wife will be happy to receive them. Oh no! Next thing we know Keller is making a whispered phone call to his wife, warning her that company's coming and threatening that she'd better play along. Trouble in paradise! The ladies are eager to settle in and get back to Solvang to shoot footage and interview Swedes, but one of the girls doesn't feel good. Bach and Lamm leave her behind, wondering to themselves about Mrs. Keller (played heartbreakingly by pretty Lelia Goldoni) who looks like she just lost her best pal. Speaking of which … under-the-weather Vicki slips off her clothes and gets into a nice hot tub, not realizing that Keller has crept into her room to inspect the keyhole. She hears him, thinks he's come to deliver linen, and calls out her thanks. Lassick did a great job in this scene expressing the anguish of a fat old peeping tom who didn't get a long enough look. After he's left, poor Vicki tumbles into bed for a nap but gets yanked out of it real fast (in a really decent, frightening round of action) by something BIG that has apparently crept up through a grille on the floor … The Unseen! Lamm comes home next (Bach is out finishing an argument with her beau) and can't find anyone in the house. She knocks over a plate of fruit in the kitchen, and, on hands and knees to collect it, her hair and fashionable scarf sway temptingly over the black floor grille … attracting The Unseen again! Well, at about the time poor Lamm is getting her quietus in the kitchen, we do a flashback into Mr. Keller's past and get the full story of what his sick, sadistic background really is and why his wife doesn't smile much. Bach finally gets home and wants to know where her friends are. Meanwhile, Lassick has been apprised of the afternoon's carnage by his weeping wife and decides he can't let Bach off the premises to reveal the secret of his home. He tempts her down into the basement where the last act of the Keller family tragedy finally opens to all of us.

I cannot say enough for Stephen Furst, whom I'd never seen before; it's obvious that he did his homework for this role, studying the methods of communication and expression of the brain damaged; Bach and Goldoni, each in their diverse way, just give the movie luster. Not only that, but movie winds up with a satisfying resolution. No stupid cheap tricks, eyeball-rolling dialog or pathetically cut corners... A real treat for your collection.

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5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Kinda creepy, kinda eerie -- I liked it. So sue me., 18 May 2003
Author: BillyBC from Vancouver

(*** out of *****)

Barbara Bach plays a TV reporter who goes to the quaint, seaside town of Soveg, California with two of her female newscaster friends to cover an annual Danish festival. Unfortunately, the three attractive ladies choose to spend the night in an old house outside of town inhabited by a seemingly kind man (character actor Sydney Lassick -- the constantly agitated `Charlie Cheswick' from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"), his nervous sister (Lelia Goldoni), and the product of their incestuous affair -- a disfigured, murderous man-child they keep locked in the cellar. This is actually an interesting and creepy little thriller with decent writing, beautiful on-location scenery, and a few scary sequences that'll get under your skin. It's kind of similar in tone and plot to Denny Harris's "The Silent Scream" from the same year. Karen Lamm and Lois Young play Bach's unlucky friends and Stephen Furst plays the adorable, slobbering lady-killer, Junior.

HIGHLIGHT: That irrepressible little stinker Junior, God love ‘im, gets a hold of poor, pretty Karen's (or is it Vicki's?) -- played by Lamm (or Young -- hell, one or the other) -- necklace and pulls her right through the floor vent.

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5 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Sleaze-appeal, 13 March 2001
4/10
Author: jangu from Stockholm, Sweden

This scared the hell out of me when i was a teenager. Now I find it more amusing than scary, but with some pretty unsettling moments and with a kind of sleazy quality to it that I like. And, come to think of it, the plot is rather disgusting actually...but handled with some kind of taste. If there is a problem with this movie, it is that there are HUGE gaps where nothing exciting or interesting happens. Also, the ending goes on forever, making a potentially tense climax seem silly after a while with Barbara Bach screaming and screaming. The "monster", after it is exposed, isn't very scary either unfortunately. The somewhat drab look of the movie also works against it, making it appear as a TV-movie more than something made for theaters. But it is an example of films that are rarely made nowadays so I urge horror fans to watch it and feel a bit nostalgic...

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6 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Pretty bad, 22 June 1999
Author: WritnGuy from New Jersey

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

"The Unseen" looked, from the box, like a decent movie. I was looking for some shocks, some overall terror, maybe a chase scene or two, and some sort of interest. I guess I was looking for too much. And never judge a movie by its box.

"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.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
the Importance of being Ernest, 9 December 2008
6/10
Author: movieman_kev from United States

Three ladies choose to take Ernest (the late lamented Sydney Lassick), a seemingly altruistic man (who's anything but) up on his offer to stay at his house where he resides with his sister, after they can't find any hotels with enough room for them. Soon after an 'unseen' tenant in the basement is killing off the buxom beauties.

This is a bad movie, I make no bones about that, but it manages (in spite of itself) to became slightly above par (for an '80's slasher film) thanks in no small part by the one-two acting punch of Sydney Lassick who plays his part of the devious off-kilter Ernest & Stephen Furst, who's over-the-pale tour-de-force performance of the titular 'unseen' has to be seen to be truly appreciated. All the other scenes without these two and sub-plots in the film are merely tedious filler.

Eye Candy: Lois Young goes full frontal as well as showing her ass

My Grade: C+

Code Red 2-disc DVD extras: Disc 1) Introduction by Doug Barr and actor Stephen Furst; commentary with producer Tony Unger and Furst; separate interviews with Furst & Barr; still gallery; theatrical trailer; and trailers for The Farmer, Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker, Sole Survivor, Beyond the Door, The Visitor, Dead Pit & Terror Circus

Disc 2) Seprate interviews with make-up effects artists Craig Reardon &Tom Burman; Make-up tests, slides, and stills gallery

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2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
A marvelously creepy and ultimately touching horror flick., 1 September 2008
8/10
Author: Scott LeBrun from Winnipeg, Canada

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Gorgeous Barbara Bach plays Jennifer Fast, a television reporter who travels with her crew (Karen Lamm and Lois Young) to Solvang, California, to cover a Danish festival. The problem is that their accommodations have fallen through and all hotels in town are full. So they travel out of town to a remote location and take advantage of the hospitality of the seemingly friendly Ernest Keller (a phenomenal Sydney Lassick). Wouldn't you know it, Ernest and meek partner Virginia (Lelia Goldoni) are hiding a big secret in their cellar: pitiable, deformed, diaper-clad "Junior" (Stephen Furst, in a remarkable performance) who ultimately terrorizes the girls.

A deliciously unhinged Lassick plays the true monster in this disturbing little horror movie. It builds slowly but surely to an intense confrontation / climax, delivering the horror in small doses until the final half hour. The hotel and the foreboding cellar - large echoes of "Psycho" here - are great settings. Most of all, the perverse plot involves incest and patricide, allowing the movie to take on a truly dark quality. And yet it also becomes poignant as we realize Junior is no one-dimensionally evil bogeyman but as much a victim as the girls. The final shot is especially sad.

"The Unseen" is a solid little horror flick worthy of discovery.

8/10

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3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
TIRED PLOT, BUT OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCES. WORTH SEEING!, 23 May 2004
Author: Randall Phillip (monstermonkeyhead@yahoo.com) from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

WARNING POSSIBLE SPOILERS CONTAINED HEREIN. The plot is not a new one: Three sexy chicks stay at a place where a brother and sister (who had incestuous relations) keep their deranged man-child in the basement. He, of course, kills off the girls one by one. Most of the movie is sleep inducing, but worth the watch. I was impressed with Sydney Lassick's performance as the seemingly kind, yet twisted brother/father to the murderous offspring. He definitely gave the part his all. Love the clothespins on his face routine. Beautiful. Then there is the mentally retarded guy in the cellar, amazingly played by Stephen Furst. He is both disturbing and hilarious with his mentally retarded mannerisms and groaning. The guy sticks a teddy bear in his underwear and blithers like a loon. Good lord, what a pure genius performance! Every time he's on the screen is a pleasure to watch. Get this movie just to see these two guys ham it up. If the plot begins to put you to sleep, fast forward until either one of these guys are on the screen. You won't be disappointed.

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3 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Sleazy, partially successful shocker, 2 May 2001
Author: Vince-5 from northeastern PA

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Contains Spoilers

The Unseen didn't do very well in its initial release and remains rather obscure today, but it deserves to be seen by cult fans at least once. It's a weird, clammy little exploitation horror piece about a basement-dwelling SOMETHING stalking and killing female reporters. Perverse and offbeat, but the climax, in which Barbara Bach comes face to face with "Junior" (Stephen Furst), is disappointing. It's a protracted scene of her flinching and screaming as he grunts and paws at her, and it seems to go on forever. If I need to see incoherently babbling, overweight people who sleep in garbage, all I have to do is observe certain relatives on vacation! Things pick up, though, and the movie ends with a bang despite the lost momentum. The luscious Bach delivers a good performance, considering the material she's given. Also memorable are Sydney Lassick as the giggly, leering owner of the house and Lelia Goldoni as his depressed sister. The Unseen may not be great, but it's slightly above average and worth a look.

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Don't look in the basement., 12 April 2009
6/10
Author: BA_Harrison from Hampshire, England

A trio of babelicious newswomen (played by Barbara Bach, Karen Lamm and Lois Young) arrive in the town of Solvang, CA, where the locals are holding a festival to celebrate their Danish ancestry. Unable to find a hotel with a vacancy, the tasty threesome accept the offer of a room for the night from Ernest Keller, a kooky museum curator (Sydney Lassick) who not only shares his large, creepy house with his timid sister Virginia (Lelia Goldoni), but also a fugly homicidal hulk named Junior (Stephen Furst), the result of the strange siblings' incestuous relationship.

Originally scripted by Kim 'Texas Chain Saw Massacre' Henkel, and subsequently re-written by then-unknown make-up artists Stan Winston and Tom Burman, this entertaining shocker features surprisingly little in the way of gore or graphic nastiness. It does, however, still manage to be quite disturbing thanks to its delightfully twisted premise, a convincing performance from Furst as the mentally disabled, man-child lurking in the basement (a great achievement, since he is acting under heavy make-up by Craig Reardon), and a chilling turn from character actor Lassick, who proves to be the real monster of the film—a mean spirited bully who rules his household through fear, intimidation and violence.

Goldoni, Lamm and Young also give solid support (with the latter providing the obligatory T&A during a bath scene), but unfortunately star Bach is rather forgettable in a role that requires her to do little other than look good, bicker with her superfluous on-screen ex-boyfriend (played by Douglas Barr, The Fall Guy's Howie Munson), and scream hysterically at Junior, who—as movie monsters go—really isn't all that scary.

6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.

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