The Unseen (1980)

I don’t really get sick.  Oh, I get a nice head cold once or twice a year, and I have hay fever that would debilitate a lesser man, but it’s rare for me to contract something akin to the flu (and bear in mind, I’m in and out of multiple people’s houses everyday in the course of my job).  I don’t chalk this up to having an iron constitution or anything of the sort.  As a matter of fact, I’d probably just call it dumb luck.  However, when I do get the flu, I get it bad.  I don’t just get a fever, headache, and nausea.  I get a high fever, migraines, and a stomach so twisted it’s nothing short of crippling.  Often, this also leads to fever dreams which, for as bizarre and interesting as they are, I could frankly do without on the whole.  What I’m getting at is even at my worst, even when I’m vomiting so much and so hard that it feels like the only thing I have left to bring up is my own anus (if it were someone else’s, I’d really be worried), I have never coughed during the act.  This is one of those cinema tropes which has always bugged me, that people will spit up a bit and then erupt in a coughing jag that would make a “lunger” green with envy.  I get that it’s called “acting,” but to my mind, this is the kind of thing that’s simply not true to life.  Even in Horror movies.

Television reporter Jennifer Fast (Barbara Bach) walks out (ironically enough) on beau Tony (Doug Barr, who you may recall as Howie Munson on TV’s The Fall Guy), who has recently undergone knee surgery.  Traveling with sister Karen (Karen Lamm) and assistant Vicki (Lois Young) to the hamlet of Solvang (an anagram for Vanglos, in case you were wondering), the three find the local hotel completely booked up.  Coming upon the Union Hotel and its not-at-all-creepy proprietor Ernest (Sydney Lassick) they ask for a room, but are informed that it’s just a museum.  However, he can let them stay at his house, where fragile wife Virginia (Lelia Goldoni) takes care of things.  But the horrors to come are still (wait for it) unseen.

If my synopsis for Danny Steinmann’s (director of the Linda Blair vehicle Savage Streets, here credited as Peter Foleg) The Unseen seems a bit slight and not all that scary, that’s because the film is a bit slight and not all that scary.  It has all the elements for a Horror film, and it puts them mostly in the right order.  Nonetheless, the filmmakers don’t seem to want to focus on the people ostensibly set up as the heroines of the piece.  If anything, this is more the story of the twisted Keller family, and had they played up the skeezy, gothic elements associated with them, this could very well have been a decent little Psychodrama.  Instead, they tried to force a standard Slasher structure onto the film, and I feel that it suffers greatly as a result.  It also doesn’t help that the acting seesaws between wooden and manic (with Lassick earning the coveted BEM Award for overdoing it this time out).  Sure, the viewers’ fingernails will dig rivulets into their arm rests, but it’s strictly a reaction to the thespian skills on display and the film’s lumbering plot, not due to any tension constructed by Steinmann and company.

It’s impossible to discuss this film in any detail without some form of SPOILERS, although it could also be argued that this is an unspoilable film, since one of the big twists (out of two) is only a twist in its appearance and has probably been discussed more than Rosebud (okay, not really).  Ready?  Here we go.  So, former Flounder Stephen Furst plays Junior Keller (aka the titular Unseen), the large mongoloid offspring of Ernest and Virginia who have kept him locked in the basement, assumedly since he could walk (and not in the attic where this sort of familial black eye is normally secreted away).  He is the murderer of two of the female characters, but it is Ernest who is the true villain of this flick, and we get that simply upon first sight.  Why else would you cast Lassick, unless you were looking for an unctuous yet somewhat effete character that is instantly untrustworthy and unlikable?  Regardless, it is Ernest’s relationship with not only Junior but also Virginia which underpins the major themes in the movie.  That the filmmakers tried to have these same themes mirrored by Jennifer and her relationship with Tony is admirable but also ineffective (I can only assume they couldn’t afford Bach’s salary to keep her onscreen longer).

The first of the major themes is one of children and parents, specifically mothers.  Virginia is a mother in a very traditional sense.  She stays at home and takes care of the house and cooks and cleans.  She is also abused mentally and physically.  Jennifer, by contrast, is an independent woman and doesn’t want a child at this point in her career.  She has repressed her mothering instinct (though it can just as easily be argued that she has none as portrayed in Bach’s icy performance), and this is conveyed in the first scenes of the film.  Jennifer walks out on Tony as he struggles to lift weights with his repaired knees (and Steinmann’s insistence on showing a closeup of his scar drives home the point that Tony is an incomplete man and in need of someone who can care for him, though not to the point an infant would).  Naturally then, when Jennifer is confronted with Junior, she must essentially face “the return of the repressed.”  What she has attempted to kill in her own life now threatens that life in a much larger (and terminal) fashion.  What’s interesting (or at least befuddling) is that we are given no indication as to how any of this will affect her life in the future.  We see the actions that she takes, but it is difficult to believe that her ordeals will strengthen her maternal impulses and change her mind about having a child of her own.  In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if she had her tubes tied after the film fades out.  Again, the film’s focus is rooted in the Kellers (not the outsiders), and it is how Virginia and Ernest act which depicts any character growth.

The second theme I’d like to touch on deals with forgetting and burying the past (which can also be read as guilt).  Here, we should be paying attention to Jennifer and Tony in this regard, but pretty much everything which the filmmakers have to say about the two is put out in the first scene and then all but hung out to dry.  No, it is the Kellers who encompass this theme almost in its entirety.  Virginia has been scarred by the past actions which have formed her present situation.  Junior is a living embodiment of the malignant past which birthed him (though he acts merely within his severe limitations and without malice).  Ernest, who is the catalyst for everything bad in the Kellers’ lives, is himself a victim of the past.  Yet in the past, when Ernest acted out to escape from the cycle of abuse which defined his young life, he only made things worse and progressed (some would argue regressed) from there, thus further perpetuating the cycle.  He owns a hotel which was turned into a museum, a place and livelihood literally trapped in the past.  To be fair, there is a certain richness in this material.  The filmmakers just didn’t dig into it past a surface level, and consequently The Unseen is a film which should resonate but ultimately doesn’t.

MVT:  Furst’s Junior is the standout of the film.  For the first few minutes he’s onscreen, he is moderately impressive and not a little creepy.  Unfortunately, when he starts doing things which are a bit on the ridiculous side (in Furst’s defense, a preoperational child would very likely behave in the same fashion), any sense of unease quickly turns to comedy.  It’s a shame, really.

Make Or Break:  The Break is the scene where Ernest gets drunk and has a conversation with a family member.  Not only is it leaden with hamfisted exposition, but it also gives us some truly overwrought acting which just crushes any expectations you might have for the film’s remainder.

Score:  5/10

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Trick or Treats (1982)

Gary Graver must have been in competition with a fellow filmmaker to see who could make a film with more padding. That’s all that “Trick or Treats” is! Pointless scene after pointless scene after pointless scene. Occasionally, he’d grace us with a scene that furthers the plot. I guess there was an asterik in the contract that stated the filmmaker must at least have a coherent story.

Graver picked a genre that allows for a lot of padding. “Trick or Treats” is a slasher film set on Halloween. It’s about a babysitter who is being stalked by an escaped mental patient. For some reason, this plot makes me think of a William Shatner mask. The psychopath doesn’t wear a mask and, at the beginning, seems quite normal. He’s a millionaire minding his own business by the pool when his wife calls the mental institution on him. Two guards chase him around his backyard until they strap him in a straight jacket.

This scene, as well as many others, are played out in a comedic tone. The whole film almost is, in fact. “Trick or Treats” is labeled as a horror, but is more of a comedy. Graver consistently builds to punch lines, not tension. I wouldn’t criticize this so harshly, as a lot of the “Friday the 13th” films do the same. The difference between those films and this is that the payoff is satisfactory.

Admittedly, some of the padding in the film works. The rich brat that Linda (Jackelyn Giroux) is babysitting is a miniature Houdini and devises quite a few amusing pranks on her. The first time she meets him is when he uses his makeshift guillotine (which, apparently, has a real fucking blade) to look as if his head was sliced. He also uses these gags to hit on her. He pretends to drown later in the film solely to have her give him CPR. These gags run their course pretty quickly, but the young actor is quite charismatic, making most of them work.

Even the killer (whose name I honestly can’t remember) has his fair share of comedic moments. When we hear of his plan to break out of the asylum, he’s confiding in a fellow patient. Said patient is a Robin Williams impersonator who cackles maniacally. In fact, all of the patients dementia are painted in broad strokes. It can be a hoot to watch, if not insulting to those dealing with mental issues.

The killer finally escapes after attacking a nurse and stealing her clothing. He spends half of the film prowling the streets pretending to be a woman. The town is full of morons as the men constantly hit on him. I guess they couldn’t notice the hairy arms and huge Adam’s Apple. He finally ditches the clothing after holding a homeless man up with a knife and stealing his clothes. He never hurts the man, though.

That’s the peculiar thing about him. He never kills any of his victims. Both the nurse and the homeless man were spared. We know his motivation is to track down and punish his wife and her new hubby (played by David Carradine, of all people) for locking him in an insane asylum. He doesn’t seem to hold beef with anybody else. He even feels remorse when he accidentally attacks a woman he believed to be his wife. This causes confusion for the viewer, as one can’t tell if we’re supposed to despise him or sympathize with him. Graver never makes it quite clear.

Remember how I briefly mentioned David Carradine earlier? That’s because characters come in and out in this film to pass the time. Linda has a boyfriend who’s acting in a play that constantly calls her. There are only two reasons he exists. One is to pad the film. The second is to taunt Linda when she gets mysterious calls from the killer and accidentally snaps on him. She has a few friends that pop up near the end (who are film editors who believe that they make the film and the directors take all of the credit) that do the exact same thing.

Do you understand what I’m getting at? This film practically has nothing going for it. It’s got a basic plot and does almost nothing of importance with it. Sure, some of the humor does work and (barely) keeps the viewer’s attention. That evaporates quickly when it becomes recycled and goes nowhere. The only other aspect holding one’s attention is that it’s on Halloween. For those of you that love the holiday like I do, seeing decorations and kids trick or treating is enchanting.

Oh, and the film is set in Las Vegas. This is said in passing once and only shown via a shot of a casino once. Any other time it seems as if we’re in any other town in the United States (say Haddonfield, for example). Why set the film in Las Vegas and never do anything with it? Why not just place it in a regular town? It’s infuriating!

MVT: I don’t know the actor’s name, but the kid who played the rich brat. That kid had spunk and made his drawn out scenes marginally watchable!

Make or Break: Not one scene in particular, but the sixty minute mark. This film is a little over eighty minutes and, by that time, nothing had actually happened. That broke the film for me and proved that Graver didn’t care about tension or character development.

Final Score: 3.75/10

Humanoids From the Deep (1980)

With the release of “Corman’s World”, I wanted to honor Roger Corman by reviewing one of his films. As he’s arguably more famous for his producing, I decided to cover one of his produced movies, as opposed to directed. I chose a film that signifies his status as the schlockmeister. It’s a cheesy and sleazy ditty directed by Barbara Peeters and Jimmy T. Murakami (who went uncredited) called “Humanoids From the Deep” (a.k.a. “Monster”).

The small fishing village of Noyo is struck by a strange case of murders. All of the town’s dogs are slain and people are going missing. Dr. Susan Drake (Ann Turkel) believes the attacks are from amphibian creatures. The markings left certainly indicate that. The townsfolks, such as Jim Hill (Doug McClure) and Hank Slattery (Vic Morrow), believe otherwise. It’s not until the fishy creatures descend upon their town that they truly believe.

The fish creatures, humanoids from the deep, are done in the classical rubber suit costume. The film’s costume and effects designers were on top of their game this time out. They splattered the costumes with oozy green slime and scaly skin. Their mouths have a lockjaw type set of teeth and their eyes are huge and bulging. It’s everything you’d want from a B-movie monster.



The way they attack their prey is radical, to say the least. They take the women captive and rape them in hopes of reproducing. How a fish and a human reproduce is beyond me. Considering this is a film about giant fish monsters that rape people, I’ll go with it. I swear Dr. Drake even mentioned that they’ll eventually start raping the men. I guess they were saving that for the sequel.

The downtime between the humanoid attacks can be both entertaining and grating. I enjoyed the actors in their roles, most notably Vic Morrow as Hank Slattery. They do their best with the pithy dialogue, which includes many wild accusations of one another. How and why someone would kill the town’s dogs overnight without being noticed is questionable.



Despite being eye roll worthy, the citizen’s suspicions of one another does lead to an awesome sequence where they all engage in a brawl outside of a fire hall. It starts out as a clash between two men and devolves into the whole male populace duking it out. I got a hearty laugh out of the horny teenager who opened his window to investigate, only to eat a knuckle sandwich for his troubles.

“Humanoids From the Deep” is no different than any other creature feature. It’s gory, slimey and at times obvious. What sets it apart is it’s fast pacing, good performances and stellar creature design. There are also some nifty explosions that surprisingly don’t feel tacked on. At eighty minutes, the film never overstays it’s welcome. It’s a perfect rainy day film!



MVT: The creature design. The gooey look and humungous size is a delectable treat. Maybe not the best wording, but you catch my drift.

Make or Break: The finale set at the festival. Watching as the humanoids run afoul of the town set to the backdrop of ferris wheels and cotton candy machines is quite glorious. It embraces the tone built by the film and keeps thing fun and interesting.

Final Score: 7/10

Society (1989)

I wanted to like “Society” more than I did. I enjoy Brian Yuzna’s style of filmmaking and feel his strange and outlandish imagery can be grotesquely beautiful. I’d even go on record to say that the outrageous imagery on display here is done fantastically. My problem is, for once, I felt it wasn’t necessary in one of his films.

With the way the story had been built, there were two ways to go. Bill Whitney (Billy Warlock, who is the lovechild of John Stamos and Emilio Estevez) feels like an outcast in his family. Despite his many successes (such as in basketball and being the next class President), he’s always felt his parents gave more attention to his sister, Jenny (Patrice Jennings). He’s of the belief that he’s adopted. His school psychiatrist believes he’s becoming slightly paranoid. I began to think the same thing in the first twenty minutes. The way Yuzna was handling the character and his peculiar visions pointed towards Bill descending into madness.



When I felt the film was going this route, I was find with the abnormal imagery that has become Yuzna’s staple. It added to the film and played off of the story well. It’s not a spoiler to reveal that Bill’s delusions are real, as it’s not only revealed within the first twenty minutes, but all of the promotion for this film announces it.

That’s not to say the film is predictable. Yuzna keeps you guessing, occasionally teasing the paranoia, but mostly just screwing with the audience. Any time Bill gets a lead or evidence in his favor, it all disappears out of the blue. This ties in briefly with the paranoia, though it’s pretty easy to tell it’s all a cover up. It’s also pretty easy to tell what is being covered up, though Brian still finds a way to surprise you.

Once the final act kicks in and we find out all of the answers, I was disheartened. I liked the message Yuzna was conveying. I just didn’t like the way he was going about it. The crazy and freakish approach undermined the message for me. That message being that the upper class feel they’re superior and in a society of their own. That they have good breeding. Yuzna didn’t need to incorporate outrageous effects to prove this point, even if it’s his trademark.

“Society” is best described for me as a rusty rollercoaster. It still operates and delivers a few thrills. However, it’s too bumpy and can cause fits of discomfort. Discomfort may be a positive for most Yuzna films, but it’s not here. As great and disgusting as the effects were, they didn’t captivate me like they did in some of his other work. Here, they just didn’t seem to serve the right purpose.



MVT: As great as the effects are, I didn’t feel they quite fit in with the outcome. Therefore, my MVT is Billy Warlock. He may have been a bit uneven in spots, but he played a likable lead who I could get behind. With a bit more seasoning, he could have been a bigger star. Too bad that never panned out.

Make or Break: The final act broke the film for me. Broke is a bit too harsh of a word, but it’s what I have to use. It certainly didn’t make the film for me.

Final Score: 5/10

The Kindred (1987) @ CineFamily

Directed by: Stephen Carpenter & Jeffrey Obrow

Starring: Rod Steiger, Kim Hunter & David Allen Brooks

When I attend an art house revival cinema if there's one thing I desperately hope for above all else -- even more so than discovering a fantastic film -- it's that I'm about to have a one-of-a-kind movie experience. In my first visit to The CineFamily Theatre in Los Angeles to see the 80s horror gem The Kindred all the ingredients for such an experience were apparent immediately. A lively and talkative crowd. An exuberant pair of highly knowledgable programers. A cool screening room that felt more like a loungey basement replete with couches, theater seats with pillows for cushions and food n' drink stands between the armrests.

But then, we're informed that the night's screening would be plagued by technical difficulties in the form of a broken equipment, relegating our viewing to a single projector. Translation: we'd have to endure a five minute plus intermission after each reel concluded (or about every 20 minutes) so the projectionist could cue up the next one. Refusing to let this damper the event, the programmers turned this complication into that unique benefit that I'd craved upon arrival. After each reel, we would be treated to a short Q&A hosted by co-director Jeffrey Obrow, incorporating the cadre of crew members on-hand that included numerous visual effects artists, the co-writer and editor, the set nurse (?!) and even Obrow's sister (?!?). What resulted was something along the lines of live director's commentary albeit one with large gaps of silence. A very one-of-a-kind experience indeed. A few of the great bits this produced were:

- After receiving crappy direction, Rod Steiger ordered the entire crew to take a break so he could ask Obrow if he'd directed actors previously. Steiger reminded Obrow that he attended the Actor's Studio and then proceeded to teach Obrow a few things about providing actors with better motivation.

- Another recipient of bad direction, Kim Hunter stopped Obrow to similarly ask if he'd ever directed anything before this movie. She also reminded Obrow that she attended the Actor's Studio and tried to give him pointers on communication with actors.

- Obrow's sister stepped forward to recount the nightly dinners where her brother's anxiety would manifest routinely with a stressed-out statement like "I only have 27 days to turn a woman into a fish and I have no idea how I'm going to do it!" This same thing happened every night after, only difference being the countdown lessened by one day.

- One of the producers invested money in The Kindred based on a concept video/short film without ever reading the screenplay. Upon reading the script, this producer frantically called Obrow to say that they needed to find a real writer (i.e. - not Obrow, who also served as the writer) to fix the script. And thus, enter Joseph Stefano (Psycho, The Outer Limits).

- Obrow's father, who had no artistic background at all, read the script and offered a single note that greatly enlightened the writers and impacted the story. He suggested that one of the male characters should be changed to a female in order to create love triangle tensions for the main character and his love interest.

- And best of all, one of the F/X guys brought up The Kindred itself, one of the original puppets utilized during filming, to show off to the audience.

- Obrow also confirmed that Synapse would distribute the film on Blu-ray & DVD in 2012.

The Kindred concerns Dr. Amanda Hollins' (Kim Hunter) deathbed plea to her son, John (David Allen Brooks), to destroy all of her remaining lab notes that she didn't have time to dispose of before falling ill. She's worried that her work will fall into the wrong hands, like those of the diabolical Dr. Phillip Lloyd (Rod Steiger), a former colleague that does not have good intentions for Amanda or her research. In urging John, Amanda accidentally lets slip that John may have a brother named Anthony the no one else knew existed.

After arriving at his mother's secluded house, John soon discovers his illegitimate brother is actually real. Except, Anthony isn't really his brother, but rather a fish-like Lovecraftian beast created from John's cell tissue. Worse, John's monstrous sibling still stalks the premises and turns his anger toward John's companions, horrifically dispatching of them one-by-one. This leaves John with no other option than to kill this creature, but Dr. Lloyd locates them and will stop at nothing to preserve this monster to serve his own interests.

The Kindred was co-directed and co-written by Jeffrey Obrow and Stephen Carpenter who double-teamed The Power and The Dorm That Dripped Blood prior to this film. If I were to pay compliment with a comparison, The Kindred feels like a poor man's Stuart Gordon film, which is a comparison I don't believe I've ever made in relation to other films and perhaps illuminates Carpenter and Obrow's weird nuance. With this in mind, the overriding characteristic is the sheer lunacy of the characters, effects and story. The filmmakers embrace a genuine B-movie quality, not manufacturing that through intentional campiness to conceal larger faults. This is a film that sees a pregnant watermelon give birth to a hideous monstrosity. The Kindred is like a mix tape of genre staples, utilizing elements from Re-Animator and It's Alive! as well as facets inspired by John Carpenter's The Thing, Alien and Dr. Moreau.

The incredible Rod Steiger leads the cast and honestly sets the tone in a lively performance. Steiger dances all over the fine line between devious and insane, making for a performance that's both playful and intense. In a fantasy world, I wouldn't have minded Steiger rocking a slight accent and changing his character to be Herbert West's mentor Dr. Hans Gruber in a quasi-spin off/prequel based on Re-Animator. That said, Steiger renders some curious line deliveries where it is difficult to tell if he's intentionally poking fun at the absurdity; it's as though Dr. Lloyd is daring others to acknowledge that he's going to kill them in typical scenes foreshadowing unavoidable deadly outcomes. But when it counts, Steiger always hits the correct notes, especially when dialing up his fervor, and he truly sells the final scene.

From the various Q&A segments, one great strength that I learned from Obrow's recollections is that he's a strong collaborator, constantly turning the reigns over to those with more expertise to shape the picture in certain areas. It is this approach that no doubt resulted in some of the best effects works I've seen in any horror film short The Thing. In an age of CG and watered-down visuals, it was refreshing to witness exquisite practical effects on display at this superb level.

Led by special makeup effects master Matthew W. Mungle, the crew does, in fact, quell Obrow's fears and gloriously pulls off stunning visual and makeup work in transforming a woman into a fish. At another juncture, Mungle's believable makeup forced many in our audience to cringe and look away when the creature's tentacle entered a woman's ear canal, bulged her through cheeks and face before exiting through a nostril. It came as little shock that Mungle would go on to win an Academy Award for his work on Bram Stoker's Dracula. The usage of the effects in the film are not only impressive, but they're well paced, starting small and steadily escalating through the duration until erupting by the film's conclusion.

Make or Break scene - Make all the way. I've gone back and forth between two scenes here, but I'll go with the final confrontation that sees Dr. Lloyd meet the monster over the fish woman transformation. It's a riveting confrontation that Steiger completely commits to and sells. There's also a cool effect where we see John's face revealed within the monster, which is something Obrow himself never realized until watching the film this latest time.

MVT - Matthew W. Mungle, easily. The Kindred is a lot fun without the masterful visual effects, but the effects are simply the best trait of the film and the driving force to searching this out.

Score - 7.5/10