Unhinged

What starts out as your average old dark house movie picks up its dragging feet towards the end and delivers a whopper of a finale. It's not a very good movie - some of the actors appear to be in danger of falling asleep mid-line reading, the pacing is uneven, and some of the scenes are lit so dark that you have to imagine what's actually going on, but when Unhinged rises to the occasion, it can be very effective.

After crashing their car on the way to a rock concert, three young woman wake up in a spooky mansion where a repressed spinster and her unstable mother live. There's also a bloodthirsty killer who doesn't want the girls there.

Unhinged is a mostly unremarkable series of slasher and old dark house movie cliches, but I'd be lying if I were to say some moments don't possess some sort of lo-fi eeriness. It's not a poorly shot film, there's some rain drenched atmosphere, a few nasty murders, and one truly insane final twist. That's more than you can say for a lot of movies. If it weren't for the mostly pedestrian script and wooden acting, Unhinged might really be something special.

I happened to pick up the "uncut, uncensored" DVD version of "Unhinged", a film I had never heard of before, but since it was only $6.99, I decided to give it a try. And I actually think it was a little better than I had expected it to be. The story is about three college-aged girls who crash their car in the woods on their way to a jazz festival. They awake in a large, dark mansion that belongs to a woman and her mother. One of the girls is badly injured, but the other two are alright, so they join the woman and her crazy, man-hating mother for dinner. The mother rambles on about how she believes her daughter is sneaking men into the house under her nose, and while we are thought to believe she's crazy, there does seem to be a man lurking around the mansion late at night. The girls then begin to die one by one, before the film reaches it's twist-ending climax.

To start off, the acting in this film was horrible. I mean, really, really bad. The dialog was cheap, and the actors didn't make it any more convincing. There was a load of nudity, which serves the purpose to please it's male audience, and the gore (when it happens) was fairly nasty (although not violent enough to get this film 'banned', as it was), besides the cheap effects that were used. So, does it sound like I hated this movie? Well, I didn't. I liked the atmosphere the movie gave off, it reminded me a little of "Suspiria", although this film is nothing close to "Suspiria" in terms of quality. As for the writing though, I thought the premise was solid. The idea has been done many times, but there were enough twists and turns to keep things interesting. Plus, the twist ending is one heck of a twist, that came completely out of nowhere. I have to applaud this film for that.

I found it interesting when I learned the movie was filmed at the Pittock Mansion in Portland, Oregon, the city I was born in as well. Strangely enough, I've been to the Pittock Mansion before (it is now open to the public as a historical site), and I recognized some of the areas used in the film. Apparently all of the actors and filmmakers were Oregonians, and I don't think any of them went on to do any major projects after this. And it makes sense, because this really isn't a top-notch movie - it's a very low budget, B-movie.

To sum it up, "Unhinged" is a low-budget video nasty, and while it's not completely horrible, it's far from great. I think if some of the characters were a tad more developed, and there was some better acting, this could have been much more improved. Although, I do tend to have a soft-spot for cheesy 80's slashers of this type. But if you can look past the bad acting and all of the shortcomings (mainly due to the film's low budget and whatnot), there was a solid attempt at something good here. It may be amateurish, but it was a step in the right direction. 6/10.

Unhinged didn't exactly show up with the highest of expectations. It hailed from a lousy looking (but cheap) multi-DVD set featuring a bunch of other unknown horror films (many of which were, indeed, awful), so I wasn't expecting much. As the film started, my fears seemed well founded for about 5 or 10 minutes as we're introduced to our three leads and watch them get ready and drive to a concert. They end up hitting a log and wrecking their car. They come to and that's when Unhinged starts heating up.

Unfortunately for them, they've been "saved" by a creepy spinster (who's a dead ringer for Miss Jane Hathaway on The Beverly Hillbillies) and her man-hating mother. From here on out, it becomes obvious that there's someone else in the house with them and they're really into casual voyeurism, heavy breathing, and chopping up women with a scythe.

Unhinged won't be winning any awards anytime soon, but there are some moments that are bizarrely effective and unnerving. The music score is appropriately spooky and the main mansion location is dripping with atmosphere and potential threats around every corner. It's hard to tell since the version I watched looked like a VHS master of some sort, but some of the cinematography isn't half bad, either.

On the other hand, the acting is either eye rollingly inept or overcooked community theatre level. Still, they're not exactly required to recite the works of Tennessee Williams, so they mostly get by ok.

Unhinged might just be worth your time if you're a non-picky horror or slasher fan.

Unhinged is a strange movie indeed. While it obviously gets most well known because it was banned, and it stills holds it's own weight. It is not as bloody as you might think, there is blood but it's not overly exploited or in the film that much besides a few scenes.

The acting is a mixed bag, most of it being amateur acting that isn't very believable. Some of the actresses seemed like they were reading their lines while half asleep. The exceptions being the sister and the mother.

What i really liked about this was it's seclusion in a castle-like mansion in the middle of nowhere. This house is more like a palace and I'd really like to know who lived there when this was filmed, it looks more like an old hotel resembling a castle than a private house.

Another thing i really liked was the music score, a well executed early 1980's synth horror style that exceeds in creating a truly creepy atmosphere and it really helps the film a lot in my opinion.

This film is far from perfect, it's obviously a very low budget indie movie. The end scenes are worth watching the movie for, and there is an 80's era shocker in the plot. It looks somewhat dated by today's horror standards, but just remember this is over 20 years old now. There are a couple of nude shower scenes, for those looking for that sort of thing it's worth mentioning.

Unhinged is now out on a great DVD in it's uncut and uncensored version. It's worth a viewing for fans of oddball horror movies.