Got a chance to catch this one in 3-D, the way God, intended recently. While it's a pretty by-the-numbers 80s slasher flick, 1. psycho escapes from asylum, 2. psycho kills sorority girls, 3. repeat, it was still fun to watch this in a theater full of enthusiastic horror fans so if you ever get a chance to see it presented this way give it a shot for some axe-flying action! I had previously, on two separate occasions, tried viewing this by myself and promptly fell fast asleep within the first few minutes, so I would not recommend that. As a bonus, the great Sydney Lassick, of course, steals every scene he's in as one of horror cinema's worst sheriffs.
Monte Hellman, who's a director best known for TWO-LANE BLACKTOP(but personally I think I like his movie COCKFIGHTER with Warren Oates better) made this artsy/romance/spaghetti-western flick which features Fabio Testi and Warren Oates along with a kinda weird supporting cast that includes Sam Peckinpah in a cameo and my fav bit actor Sydney Lassick(unfortunately, as he often did, Lassick also only shows up for a tiny scene and then disappears).
The basic plot here concerns Testi who's freed from jail and is supposed to go kill Oates so a railroad can be built. He ends up banging Oates wife(Jenny Agutter) and then a bunch of shootouts occur. Technically Testi is presented as our hero but doesn't seem all that heroic but that's not really my problem with this film. The main problem is that things go by pretty slowly and drag on and on up until about 3/4's of the way through the run-time when we finally get some action. I've also only ever seen an edited print of this so I imagine an uncensored version would be slightly more exciting with the full nudity and violence. Might be worth a watch for the ladies though, with it's triangular love story and all, which is a rare thing for this genre but it's a little too slow-moving overall for me.
Ever since first seeing ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST I've been a huge fan of character actor Sydney Lassick. The man just always brings a smile to my face. When I heard there was a horror flick starring my man Syd as a creepy old fellow with scary secrets I knew I had to check it out. THE UNSEEN is pretty much everything I hoped it would be. OK maybe it coulda used a little gore, cuz that's always icing on the cake, but even without it you get a really crazy tale full of incest, murder and general insanity. Sydney, as usual, is amazing in the role he was born to play as a tubby lecherous fellow that Barbara Bach and her friends somehow trust enough to spend the night in his place when they get stuck in a little town. This just shows Sydney's vast range in acting styles to go from a kindly old gent to a raving, lady-slapping nut-bag from scene to scene. I've seen this lumped in with slasher flicks and I can see why cuz there is killing going on but I think there's enough oddball elements to put this in it's own category.
The last half hour of this really needs to be seen to be believed when a character who reminded me of Sloth from THE GOONIES mixed with Curly from THE 3 STOOGES mixed with Leatherface shows up and all hell breaks loose. I would recommend this movie just for that if nothing else.
The movie was directed by Danny Steinmann who also did FRIDAY THE 13th PART 5 and SAVAGE STREETS so he's alright in my book.
