Unhinged (1982)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s It About: Three boring girls go on a boring trip, only to get kidnapped by a boring family who eventually kill them. Boringly.

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• Including the main credits there is 2:43 of black screen. This is gonna suck a platypus dick.
• OK, they almost instantly make up for it with Terry’s showering tits. A welcome placation in anyone’s neighborhood.
• This movie is gonna burn slower than The House Of The Devil.
• Did we really need to hear the entire phone conversation between Terry and her mother?
• “Say Hey! What’s happening?” should never be spoken by a waspy-white girl.
• Nor should, “sheeeeeit.”
• Lots of useless v/o while the girls are driving over a bridge.
• Some bad synth with a helicopter shot as the girls drive into the woods.
• Clichéd joint being passed around as they drive.
• More bad synth.
• Mousey/stoned girl doesn’t get the punch line to a blowjob joke. Can we just stop the movie here?
• The girls from The Last House On The Left were going to a concert as well right? Let’s hope they meet the same fate.
• Clichéd radio report of other girls who have gone missing adds to the spontaneity of this scene.
• A fade to black during a travelling shot? Are you serious?
• Oh great, now it’s raining. Well, at least in front of the camera lens it is.
• The gals run over a log and crash their car. Hope they didn’t go over-budget with that stunt.
• “My name is Marion Penrose, you’re in my house.” There is no way that statement can be construed as comforting.
• Norman starts massaging Terry’s leg without any desire to have that happen expressed.
• Norman looks exactly like the guy who played Oberyn Martell. That’s two Game Of Thrones references this year already.
  

  Jerry’s $3000 a week meth habit wouldn’t deter him from his goal to become the town’s leading Avon rep.

• Marion is mentioning her mother so much it needs a reference to Psycho. So there it is.
• Nah, the dichotomy between Marion and her mother is no cause for alarm.
• These actors are so bad, they can’t even eat properly.
• OK, mother hates men and is apparently no fan of her daughter either.
• Did the editor fully understand how to cut between scenes, or am I being too nitpicky?
• Terry and Nancy are being way too calm for being in a car wreck and mysteriously ending up in a strange house.
• The heavy breathing scene with an unseen intruder went absolutely nowhere.
• The actresses playing Terry and Nancy are related to, or are fucking the producers.
• Terry finds a human tooth underneath her bed, and in what would be a pivotal scene in any other slasher movie, it is a mere inconvenience in this one.
• The director of this movie is an absolute genius. He has figured out how to film a tense scene without any tension in it at all.
• Terry is awakened by the aforementioned heavy breather, who is obviously watching her while slamming his ham.
• The movie is now at its halfway point, and Terry is just realizing that they should make an effort to leave this house.
• After all of these rather harsh observations, the movie throws out another full frontal shower scene with Terry and Nancy. It’s as if it knew I was getting bored and it offered that as a kind gesture. I was, and it is, and I thank you.
• Nancy’s gonna go out and try to reach town to get a word out to their parents. So long sweetie.
• The music accompanying Nancy’s trek through the woods sounds like Gary Numan threw up and then passed out on his keyboard.
• Nancy’s screams of “oh no!” while she’s being hacked to death, really brought home the fact that she didn’t want her murder to happen.
  

  Why there were eventually warning labels stuck to every commercially sold scythe.

• Has Terry really not learned that you shouldn’t mention men or parents around Marion yet?
• Marion’s father had sex with an eight-year-old girl? OK, I now understand her mother’s venomous ire.
• It has been awhile since Terry got naked. Hint hint movie.
• What is it with mother and her salt and pepper shakers? It’s positively Manchurian.
• Here we go, another men-are-all-evil dinner conversation scene. Try talking politics or current events for the love of obviously no one else but Eve.
• Terry is awakened by more masturbatory breathing. At this point self–abuse might be the only thing to get me through the rest of this movie.
• Speaking of, someone tell the guy who is doing the jerking-off Foley breathing that he doesn’t have to swallow the fucking mic.
• After exploring the house, Terry finds old pictures that are obviously clues to the history of this family, and Carl; the five-year-old-minded adult brother of Marion. Of-fucking-course.
• Marion then goes on to explain the situation with her brother way too much. Look, he’s either a McGuffin or a Red Herring. He can’t be both.
• Hey everyone! Norman’s back! Who gives a shit.
• Oh yeah, Gloria – the third girl in the car is re-introduced with ten minutes to go.
• Gloria then promptly gets an axe in her face. Fuck her and me.
• Terry has been shouting Gloria’s name so much now, I have that awful Laura Branigan song in my head. No, I’m not posting the link to the video.
• Carl gives chase to Terry into the evil wood shed that now houses her friends’ bodies. The end folks, is quite thankfully nigh.
• Back into the main house where Terry shoots Carl in the face with one shot. Looks great naked and a sharpshooter, who knew?
• Well raise my rent! Not only is Marion the killer, she is also a man. It was Psycho after all, or was it The Crying Game? Who cares, the movie’s over.
  

  For those nights when decongestants just can’t make a dent…

Scare Level: Realizing that this movie was 79 minutes long when it felt like 790, scared the shit out of me.

Gore Level: Blood during a slashing, an axe to the mush, and what looked like some body parts in the wood shed but I can’t really be sure.

Nudity Level: Two very nice shower scenes, one of which is les femme à deux.

Best Line: “A lot of really weird things are going on round here. Breathing, strange sounds, your Mother, now faces at the window, I can’t stand it!” No shit Shirley, neither can we.

Best Scene: When Terry and Nancy are planning their day ahead while in the shower together. I know I’m playing up the nudity as usual, but as I’ve said in previous reviews; there is really nothing else worth mentioning in this movie.

Worst Scene: Any one of which that involved dialogue. So, pretty much all of ‘em. Honorable Mention: The final shot when Marion reverts to his/her female voice and says, “No, Mother” should have clearly been on her face and not on a still shot of a staircase. I mean c’mon.

Overall: This was a Video Nasty? Apparently it received that classification for the excessive nudity (I wouldn’t say excessive even though I just did) and the violent gore. The gore? Seriously? Most of the Friday The 13^th’s have more gore than this. I know that there are 64 more Video Nasties to go, but to be honest they’ve been a let down so far. Christ, imagine if I reviewed all 72? Wouldn’t that be sick? Who the fuck am I talking to?

Score: 1.5 Out Of The Two Girls Who Were Naked (out of 10)