Just Watched: Unhinged (1982)

Get used to watching them talk at this table

Shooting a horror film on a low budget does not necessarily mean it will be awful, oftentimes they will achieve cult status because of crazy kills, oddball stories and memorable characters even if the acting wasn’t very good or special effects looked cheap. Unhinged, however, is not one of those films.

Through it’s short 79 min length we are told the story of three girls on their way to a music festival. Things go awry and they end up in a home with an ugly middle aged woman named Marion and her crazy mother. The mother seems to hate all men for some reason, and there are creepy breathing noises at night. Will these three girls survive??

This scene should have been awesome, but it's not

Chances are you probably won’t care. Anything that the film may have had going for it quickly vanishes when the first kill finally happens. The time it takes to actually get to it is bad enough, but once you see how ineptly shot it is and the laughable music that plays you’ll probably wanna switch to something else. It’s not that the music is that bad generally, but the synthesizer heavy soundtrack does not fit the film at all.

Another one of the UK’s video nasties, it’s inclusion is a bit of a head scratcher. Yes, it has some unnecessary shower scenes including one with full frontal nudity, but the violence is rather tame and some is shown off screen. Most of the actors involved in Unhinged were just locals and it is painfully obvious. Whether the girls are talking to each other, or to others such as the man who helps them at the start of the film it has to be some of the most wooden performances caught on film. Many conversations just feel like the actors are reading lines to each other, no emotion involved. Even those who are not one to complain often about acting may find themselves doing so here.

Unhinged is also poorly filmed with shots that linger far to long on a character just talking and talking and talking, and the kills are really lame. Whether you consider this a slasher or not will largely depend on what you define a slasher as. The kill count here is low, and comes across more as a movie about a creepy house and it’s residents, more Psycho than Friday the 13th.

A face not even her mother loves

Availability: If you don’t mind buying used you may be able to pick up a copy of Unhinged on DVD used for less than $5 since there seems to be several people who purchased it and hated it. No word on a blu-ray release yet. It has also been uploaded to You Tube where it can be viewed for free.

Although there are people out there who will enjoy Unhinged, it’s difficult to really recommend it to anybody. Despite it’s misleading packaging it’s not really gory or violent, the characters are boring, it’s poorly shot, the music does not go with the film and it has no atmosphere. You’re much better off watching Psycho (1960) or even the rather bland Burnt Offerings (1976) over this waste of time.