THE UNSEEN

US, 1980, 91 minutes, Colour.
Barbara Bach, Sidney Lassick, Lelia Goldoni.
Directed by Peter Foley.

The Unseen is by no means an original horror film but it is done competently. The focus is, once again, on an early '80s television personality and her friends being terrorised. The background of the terrorising is of some interest: small town America, an eccentric brother and sister who have produced a monstrous child that they lock in the cellar. Her is the unseen. There is a lot of chase and suspense action towards the end after the portrayals of madness on the part of Lelia Goldoni and Sidney Lassick. The heroine, tormented and intrepid, is an attractive Barbara Bach.

1. Enjoyment of horror films? The Halloween trend? Multiple murders and terror? Nightmares and identification? What if ...?

2. Colour photography, Californian locations, American Gothic? The town and its celebration, European origins? The celebration and detail? Television coverage? Contrast with the Gothic house, the cellar? Reality and unreality?

3. The intrepid heroine, her television career, her boyfriend and his trying to prove himself, her girlfriends, the crowded towns, accommodation, seeing her at work, the return to the house, the discoveries, the imprisonment and the terror? The final confrontation and heroics? An experience of horror?

4. The kindly old man - seemingly so? Help, smooth talking, curator of the museum? His house, his sister and his hurting her? Seeing him and his madness, greediness, persecution of his sister? Cruelty to Junior? The death of the girls and his getting rid of their bodies? The discussions with his sister and his plan for trapping the heroine? Luring her into the cellar, trapping her there? His death? American madness?

5. The contrast with his sister and her sadness, housework and cooking, her fears, her lamentations, love for her son - her response to her brother's cruelty? Her decisiveness in killing him?

6. Junior as a result of the incest, his retarded state, the cruelty of his being in the cellar, his wanting to play with the heroine, the horror of his chasing her? The violence?

7. The sketch of the girlfriends, tiredness, the accommodation, the terror and their deaths? Their being trapped and terrorised - and Junior being an innocent predator?

8. The sketch of the hero, sports background, injuries, exercise - the credits sequence? His chasing the heroine, coming to her help, inability to help her because of his leg?

9. Scares and shocks and suspense effects?

10. A satisfying short horror film?