Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this Sick World.
‘Ta Da!’
We’re looking at The Unseen, starring Bond Girl, Barbara Bach.
‘Did you tell them who we are?’
The film opens with this mystifying shot...
#Wierd sexual moaning#
as American footballer Tony exercises his injured leg while his girlfriend, Jennifer, walks out on him.
Jennifer is a reporter
and with her camera and sound women she is heading to a small town to cover the local ‘we’re from Denmark’ festival,
‘First of all, don’t yell at me, it’s not my fault’
but the hotel has lost their booking and they are forced –
in the loosest sense of the word –
to stay with the first creepy man they meet.
‘Just get the room ready’
But I’m sure his house isn’t just a whitewashed Bates Motel,
well, I’m sure his wife won’t raise any red flags.
'Your room is ready, I hope you'll be comfortable.'
At the very least, there won’t disturbing sounds coming from the heating vents.
#Wierd sounds coming from the basement#
Yeah this was a bad idea that gets worse.
Have to assume that’s the only reason Ernest here invited the girls because,
frankly, it wasn’t the best idea for him either.
‘They could find out’ ‘
'No way my dear,’
Ernest and Virginia have a secret.
Living in the basement...
and it gets lonely.
Now this requires some backstory
and what better way to deliver it than all at once via Ernest having a flashback conversation with his dead father,
‘Ernest my boy, glad to see you.’
and we learn the real identity of Virginia and the nature of the thing in the basement,
‘Did it feel good taking your own sister?’
I don’t really want to know the answer,
‘We’re going to make sure this doesn’t happen again’
How?
‘Pull your trousers down boy’
Don’t know if Daddy planned to neuter him but young Ernest put a stop to it.
#sound of Ernest murdering his father, we don't see it because that would have meant shooting another scene.#
So Ernest and Virginia are brother and sister
and their offspring has lived in the cellar for the last 20 years, because that was the obvious solution.
‘Where are you?’
While its dragging Vicki into a heating vent, J
ennifer and Karen are filming, when Tony unexpectedly turns up to win Jennifer back,
I mean, why did they even split up?
‘Beat up on any more women today?’
I don’t know if I’m misinterpreting the phrase
‘Beat up on any woman today’,
but it’s treated as no big deal.
‘I know you think Tony’s the best thing that ever happened to me and that I’m insensitive to his feelings’
And the real reason for their break up is Tony’s inability to accept that his bum leg has ended his career.
‘It’ll heal’
‘how many doctors have to say no?’
Leaving the couple to sort things out, Karen heads back and falls foul of another vent.
Now Ernest and Virginia must dispose of Jennifer. Victim number 3.
‘Come on down’
Locked in the cellar, Jennifer finds her friends,
then Junior.
#Offensive mentalist grunts... wait is mentalist also offensive?#
In a way, that’s kind of it.
This movie is an hour of slow set up, then 30 minutes of reinforcing unpleasant stereotypes about mental illness.
Having gone really out of his way to kill Vicki and Karen,
junior doesn’t hurt Jennifer,
forcing Ernest to take a hand,
leading to an escalatingly violent game of family feuds.
Jennifer tries to escape but Ernest is after her,
who will save her?
He’s turning up in the middle of the night having been rejected multiple times.
‘If it’s over, it’s over but not this way’
It’s convenient in the circumstances but the man is a stalker.
It’s Wife Beater Man, here he comes…
and down he goes. Oh the significance of the dodgy leg.
Well wasn’t that lucky.
Before we go any further, the girls’ room is on the first floor
meaning the heating vents running through the house have to be large enough to accommodate Stephen Furst
and we know he can get out of them,
making that lock on the basement door largely ornamental and completely trashing the central concept.
'I don't belive this.'
So before you get onto the massive structural and thematic issues;
it’s already total nonsense.
‘That assuredly is the most asinine statement ever to have escaped from that delicate mouth of yours.’
But I still think it’s the ‘love story’ that irritates me most.
Thanks for watching. For a more entertaining take on horror, why not try one of my books?
What are your favourite Thing in the Cellar movies and are there any we should look at? Let us know in the comments below
