REVIEW – Unhinged

Published on: 20th December, 2009

REVIEW - Unhinged  | read this item

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The problem with ‘video nasties’ is that very few of them live up to their reputation. By far one of the greatest offenders was Don Gronquist’s 1982 atrocity Unhinged, which managed to make the acting talents on display in a Herschell Gordon Lewis picture seem impressive. Whilst many independent features of the era managed to transcend above their meager low budgets, there were a countless others that somehow succeeded in being distributed despite being nothing more than home movies or amateur efforts. Unhinged quite easily fell into the latter: an uninspired and generic mess that boasted a by-the-numbers plot, pitiful acting and the kind of camerawork that makes you think it was directed by Stevie Wonder. Although other no-budget flicks like The Dorm That Dripped Blood and The Mutilator at least offered the viewers something interesting (inventive deaths), Gronquist does not even give us the courtesy of that.

Terry Morgan (Laurel Munson) and her girl friends, Nancy (Sara Ansley) and Gloria (Barbara Lusch), prepare to embark on a trip into the country. When a thunderstorm erupts at night their car loses control and crashes into a ravine, knocking the girls unconscious. Terry wakes up some time later to find two strangers – Marion Penrose (Janet Penner), the owner of the house, and local handiman Norman Barnes (John Morrison) – watching over her. Reuniting with Nancy whilst Gloria remains asleep, Terry is introduced to Marion’s mother, Edith (Virginia Settle), an elderly wheelchair-bound woman who seems welcoming to the young girls. The relationship between Edith and her daughter is an unstable one, with Marion constantly accused of being a liar and a whore. But as they retreat to the lounge to listen to Marion play the piano a figure appears at the window, watching the girls as they relax.

Even at their worst, the majority of slasher films have something positive to offer: Herb Freed’s Graduation Day had the talents of Christopher George and Linnea Quigley, James Bryan’s Don’t Go in the Woods was full of over-the-top gore and even the British production Slaughter High had a cast who were clearly having fun with their limited material. Yet Unhinged is really difficult to recommend as it appears to have no redeeming features. Munson is one of the most boring and mediocre final girls the genre has ever produced, lacking the vulnerability of Jamie Lee Curtis, the common sense of Adrienne King or even the scream factor of Marilyn Burns. With their being an overabundance of slasher flicks in 1982, it is a surprise that Unhinged managed to attract an audience at all.

Perhaps the worst performance of the movie, however, came from Settle, whose monotone delivery of her lines and lack of expression rivals The Gruesome Twosome’s Elizabeth Davis. Clearly unable to act and simply reciting her lines without making any effort to sound convincing, Settle is the weak link in a broken chain and makes each of her scenes almost laughable due to her inability to act. Penner is not much of an improvement, although the material that the cast have been given to work with (Gronquist was also responsible for the script) may explain why all of the actors seem to sleepwalk through the movie. This is further hindered by poor sound, most likely due to its low budget (although there are plenty of examples of films shot under similar conditions that were far more professional). It is not surprising that most of the cast would not work on a movie again.

The usual slasher clichés and employed throughout: from creepy, perverted voices (Black Christmas) to the killer enjoying a peepshow of the girls showering (Psycho). In fact, Gronquist does his best to make up for the film’s other inadequacies by filling the screen full of nudity every chance he gets, from the pointless shot of Munson bathing during the opening scene to both Munson and Ansley showering together as the Peeping Tom watches through a hole in the wall. Despite their being no phone in the house and Gloria suffering minor injuries in the crash, it seems ludicrous that the girls make no attempt to leave the house and try elsewhere for help, particularly with both Marion and her mother acting so strangely. Yet such minor plot holes are the least of the movie’s worries.

The film’s major flaw is that once the viewer has sat through one come-inducing scene after another to get to the kills they fail to deliver. The murder of Nancy at the hands of a maniac brandishing a scythe is so poorly staged (and acted) that it almost feels like a horror spoof instead of a supposedly serious ‘video nasty.’ The car crash is also laughable, with the accompanying music reducing many of the key scenes to mere parody. The British government became paranoid during the 1980s and frantically labelled many undeserving movies as obscene and removed them from the shelves, but you have to wonder whether James Ferman and his cohorts actually watched Unhinged before making their decision as, with the exception of a few scenes of nudity, there is nothing here that could be considered offensive aside from how bad this movie really is.

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