Sam Panico 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.

Backlash007 ~Spoiler~I wish The Unseen would have stayed that way. I now completely understand why Danny Steinmann took his name off the picture. It just doesn't play like a Steinmann movie. It's boring. And Steinmann's other films are anything but boring. The film stars the beautiful Barbara Bach as a reporter who is forced to stay with a weird old couple while putting together a story. Little does Bach and her crew know that something lurks in the basement. Not a lot happens during the first hour of the film and we spend too much time with the creepy Sydney Lassick rather than the luscious Bach. The attacks by the Unseen are not as terrifying as they should be mainly because, well, you don't see anything. When the Unseen actually does get some screen time, you will certainly be shocked, be it a good thing or a bad thing. Special commendation goes out to Stephen Furst who actually plays the Unseen. Never before has a performance simultaneously freaked me out and caused hysterical laughter. Seeing Flounder from Animal House in an over-sized diaper looking like one of the mutants from Nothing But Trouble is as good as it sounds. But it doesn't make the film watchable. Stick to Savage Streets or Friday the 13th part V for the real Danny Steinmann experience.

lovecraft231 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.

snausworldlove Get this film if at all possible. You will find a really good performance by Barbara Bach, beautiful cinematography of a stately (and incredibly clean) but creepy old house, and an unexpected virtuoso performance by … "The Unseen". I picked up a used copy of this film because I was interested in seeing more of Bach, whom I'd just viewed in "The Spy Who Loved Me." I love really classically beautiful actresses and appreciate them even more if they can act a little. So: we start with a nice fresh premise. TV reporter Bach walks out on boyfriend and goes to cover a festival in a California town, Solvang, that celebrates its Swedish ancestry by putting on a big folk festival. She brings along a camerawoman, who happens to be her sister, and another associate. (The late Karen Lamm plays Bach's sister, and if you know who the celebrities are that each of these ladies is married to, it is just too funny watching Bach (Mrs. Ringo Starr) and Lamm (Mrs. Dennis Wilson) going down the street having a sisterly quarrel.)) Anyway … Bach's disgruntled beau follows her to Solvang, as he's not done arguing with her. There's a lot of feeling still between them but she doesn't wanna watch him tear himself up anymore about his down-the-drain football career. The ladies arrive in Solvang to do the assignment for their station, only to find their reservations were given away to someone else. (Maybe to Bach's boyfriend, because think of it – where's he gonna stay?). The gals ask around but there is just nowhere to go. Mistakenly trying to get into an old hotel which now serves only as a museum, they catch the interest of proprietor Mr. Keller (the late Sidney Lassick), who decides to be a gentleman and lodge them at his home, insisting his wife will be happy to receive them. Oh no! Next thing we know Keller is making a whispered phone call to his wife, warning her that company's coming and threatening that she'd better play along. Trouble in paradise! The ladies are eager to settle in and get back to Solvang to shoot footage and interview Swedes, but one of the girls doesn't feel good. Bach and Lamm leave her behind, wondering to themselves about Mrs. Keller (played heartbreakingly by pretty Lelia Goldoni) who looks like she just lost her best pal. Speaking of which … under-the-weather Vicki slips off her clothes and gets into a nice hot tub, not realizing that Keller has crept into her room to inspect the keyhole. She hears him, thinks he's come to deliver linen, and calls out her thanks. Lassick did a great job in this scene expressing the anguish of a fat old peeping tom who didn't get a long enough look. After he's left, poor Vicki tumbles into bed for a nap but gets yanked out of it real fast (in a really decent, frightening round of action) by something BIG that has apparently crept up through a grille on the floor … The Unseen! Lamm comes home next (Bach is out finishing an argument with her beau) and can't find anyone in the house. She knocks over a plate of fruit in the kitchen, and, on hands and knees to collect it, her hair and fashionable scarf sway temptingly over the black floor grille … attracting The Unseen again! Well, at about the time poor Lamm is getting her quietus in the kitchen, we do a flashback into Mr. Keller's past and get the full story of what his sick, sadistic background really is and why his wife doesn't smile much. Bach finally gets home and wants to know where her friends are. Meanwhile, Lassick has been apprised of the afternoon's carnage by his weeping wife and decides he can't let Bach off the premises to reveal the secret of his home. He tempts her down into the basement where the last act of the Keller family tragedy finally opens to all of us.I cannot say enough for Stephen Furst, whom I'd never seen before; it's obvious that he did his homework for this role, studying the methods of communication and expression of the brain damaged; Bach and Goldoni, each in their diverse way, just give the movie luster. Not only that, but movie winds up with a satisfying resolution. No stupid cheap tricks, eyeball-rolling dialog or pathetically cut corners... A real treat for your collection.