Danny Steinmann started his directing career with the adult movie High Rise and worked on the films Savage Streets and Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning along the way. After that film, he was injured in a bicycle accident and was unable to return to directing. He also produced the Gene Roddenberry made-for-TV movie Spectre. Today, though, we're here to discuss his 1980 effort The Unseen.Keep in mind - Steinmann had his name removed from the movie as he was upset with the final cut. He's credited as Peter Foleg.Jennifer (Barbara Bach Lady Starkey, the wife of Ringo Starr who also was in The Spy Who Loved Me, Black Belly of the Tarantula and Short Night of Glass Dolls) and Karen (Karen Lamm, the wife of Beach Boy Dennis Wilson), along with their friend Vicki, are in Solvag, CA to cover a folk rock show and town festival. A mix-up over their reservations leads the girls to stay with Ernest Keller (Sydney Lassick, Skate Town U.S.A., Lady in White), the owner of a museum.Jennifer is in town to report on the town's parade and festival, but has to deal with her soon to be ex-boyfriend Tony (Douglas Barr, TV's The Fall Guy's Howie, as well as Deadly Blessing), who wants to talk about their relationship. Ugh.Meanwhile, Vicki just wants to get naked while creepy old men stare at her through vents. Sadly for her, The Unseen pulls her through one of those vents and slams it down on her beck, killing her. Soon after, Karen is also killed. Their bodies are discovered by Ernest's wife Virginia (Lelia Goldoni, who was in Cassavetes' Shadows and the 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers).That's when we learn the secret: Virginia and Ernest are husband and wife, as well as brother and sister. He killed their father two decades ago and they've lived here ever since, along with Junior (Stephen Furst, the guy from Animal House in the role one wonders if he was born to play), their inbred son. Ernest is keeping up the cycle of abuse that his father started, beating his son and keeping wife/sister in submission. Now, Jennifer must die to keep the secret.Ernest lures her into the basement where she finds her friends' bodies. She panics and runs into Junior, who she discovers probably didn't mean to kill anyone. Ernest tries to kill her, but Virginia tries to save her. This leads to a family fight and Ernest kills his son with a board with a nail through it.Just as Ernest is ready to off Jennifer with a hatchet, her stupid ex saves her. Well, he tries to, but an old leg injury flares up, Oh, you inept moron! It's up to Virginia to save the day by shooting her husband/brother and going back in the house to hold her dead son.The Unseen was originally written by Kim Henkel and Michael Viner. While Henkel is best known for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Viner was a producer and audiobook pioneer who also assembled the Incredible Bongo Band, whose song "Apache" is one of the most sampled songs ever. Their screenplay was adapted into the book Deadly Encounter by Richard Woodley.Bluntly put, this movie is all over the place. The reveal of The Unseen stays on the monster so long that you wonder why this movie is called The Unseen. It starts with so much promise, but by the end, you may find yourself staring at the time left, hoping that it ends quickly.

"The Unseen" does manage to stand out from many other independent horror movies of this period. The production values are pretty good, for one thing. More importantly, much of the movie is creepy enough to make you genuinely uneasy. Much of this is due to the performances of the two lead male actors. Cult star Sydney Lassick makes his Ernest character a very uneasy figure - you can tell he's hiding something, as well as hinting that his character is a very disturbed individual long before secrets are revealed. And Stephen Furst is very convincing as "Junior", the out of control secret who is extremely unpredictable.Both actors bring in some genuinely creepiness and chills, and the direction adds some genuine atmosphere at times. Still, the movie remains somewhat tasteless to a degree. When we learn how disturbed Ernest is, and how he treats his "wife" and Junior, there is an uneasy feeling of genuine cruelty. Also, the character of Junior often comes across as an unfortunate, and a victim to a degree. The treatment of this unfortunate leads to some uncomfortable moments.Is the movie worth seeing despite the lapses in taste? Maybe. I would recommend it to viewers who are (1) fans of independent horror movies from this period, and (2) are not easily offended. Though even these people might find some moments of the movie tough to sit through.

One of the better horror films of the 1980s, with superior production values and script and even the acting, which is unusual for a low-budget "monster" movie. A trio of TV types, all pretty young females, visit a small town for its annual festival, and all the area hotels being filled up, take up a kindly old man's offer to have them stay overnight in his home. Unfortunately, the messed-up offspring of his incestuous relationship wit his sister (the distinguished New York actress Lelia Goldoni) lives in the basement and just loves company to death. The legendary character actor Sidney Lassick steals the show as the kindly old man who is as homicidal as his demented son. The son is played by Stephen Furst, best known as Flounder from "Animal House." Barbara Bach, who was never much of an actress but who always looks great, even covered in mud and chicken poop, is the film's nominal star and TV actor Doug Barr plays her ex-boyfriend. Great sets, great suspense, and a lollapalooza of a third act. It does not end like you might expect. The gore is kept to a minimum, and everything, right down to the creepy old basement, feels very real. Wait until you get a load of Furst, who is not seen until the big showdown. A must see. One small warning: Furst plays a 300-lb. man with Down Syndrome, and he plays it extremely well. So I advise anyone with a Down Syndrome child or relative to approach with the utmost caution.

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.