Freelance reporter Jennifer (Barbara Bach)and her friends Vicki (Lois Young) and Karen (Karen Lamm) come visit a farmhouse owned by a shady museum owner. Little do they know is that there is something living underneath the house-and it's not very nice.
Director Danny ("Savage Streets", "Friday the 13th V") Steinmann and co-writer Kim ("The Texas Chainsaw Massacre") Henkel give you "The Unseen", a little known but watchable early 80's horror tale that has garnered something of a cult following. On one hand, it's easy to see why-Henkel and Steinmann's involvement is hard to ignore, though it's reliance on eerie, Gothic scares instead of gore (quite different from the slasher movies of the time), a plot that's part "Texas Chainsaw" and part "Psycho", some impressive atmosphere, and creepy score are all factors that work-well, for the most part.
The acting unfortunately, isn't that stellar, particularly Bach, who in spite of being in some great movies, is far from interesting here. The biggest problem though, is the third act, which just feels like the writer and director ran out of ideas in the last minute. While Stephen ("Animal House") Furst is good as the disfigured monster, his character isn't that scary, and feels a bit underdeveloped, as do other characters.
"The Unseen" is a decent but hardly perfect forgotten 80's horror flick that would make a nice watch on a rainy weekend afternoon, and would also make a nice double bill with Jeff Lieberman's underrated "Just Before Dawn." If you want to see it, then get it on DVD, though I doubt that it really deserves the 2-Disc treatment Code Red has given it.
