October Horror Challenge 2022 #33: "The Unseen (1980)"

I know absolutely nothing about this movie. I'd never even heard of it before it appeared on Shudder recently and made its existence known, but since it was a slasher and it was from the 1980s it flew right to the top of my list because slashers are my favorite and 80s slashers are even better.

This movie is about three female reporters who are in Solvang, California to report about a local festival. When they are unable to find a hotel room for the night, they end up staying with a local museum curator at his house with his shy, quiet wife. the museum curator, who at first appears to be a harmless eccentric, turns out to be harboring some dark secrets. Not only is he physically and verbally abusive to his wife, but there is more to his mansion than meets the eye. Will the three ladies survive the night?

How come I've never heard of this movie? It's better than a lot of 80s slashers I've seen that get way more publicity than this one does. The movie opens up with the reporters searching for a hotel to stay in, and they follow a lead to a local bed and breakfast, only to find that it's been closed for years and converted to a museum by a friendly middle-aged man who offers to let the three women stay with he and his wife for the night, and even though this is in the days before Air BnB became a thing, they taake him up on his offer. One of the women is a huge jerk who makes snide comments mocking Virginia, the man's wife, so I was sort of hoping for her to get killed in some gruesome way. One of thhe women we barely get to meet and the other, the head reporter, is kind of a jerk too, so I really wasn't rooting for any of the characters (well, maybe the killer). I guessed the twist pretty early on, but it's still handled well (and kind of squicky).

The most impressive thing about this movie though is the climactic final act. It takes place in a dank cellar in the rain, and here is where the final girl really starts to shine even though I didn't like her before, I was definitely rooting for her in the end. There's not much gore to speak of here, but there's plenty of mud, and I felt bad for the actress that had to crawl through so much muck, because that had to be difficult for her. Overall, though this movie doesn't have a great ad campaign, I will be its voice and say that you definitely have to check it out because it's worth the watch.