Unhinged/Review

Three Valley-Girl types are on their way to a music concert but make the dreadful mistake of getting lost during the drive. Do I sense a car-crash occuring on this deserted road? I sure do. Whammo! They end up crash-landing in a ditch. Our main heroine of the trio, Terry (Laurel Munson) wakes up to find herself in a remote mansion being taken care of by a woman similar to Norman Bates named Marion (Janet Penner) Of course, you can't have a "Norman Bates" without a "Mother" now, can't you? As Terry and her friends find out....Well, at least one of friends finds out (the other remaining girl will be comatose for about four more days. More on that later) the mansion is run by Mother Penrose (Virginia Settle) who we discover is not only a hater of men, but also goes into lapses of lustful desires towards her tableware (I kid you not) As Marion goes into looong monologues about this screwy family's history, the girls finally say to themselves, "You know, we've been here for over three days now. Should we decide to go home now?" Okay. That's not exactly what they say (Took a bit of licensing there) But, as in the formula of a slasher, the girls have been told that their car is too damaged to leave. There's no phone available. The terrain's too tough to walk through. They're too far away from the nearest village...Yadda,Yadda...But one of the other girls, Nancy (Sara Ansley) decides to make a dash for it. Bet you she didn't plan on running into a sickle-swinging maniac that would hack her to bits! So, whoa! There's finally a little action going on in this movie! But hold your horses. We're back into more long monologues by Marion as Terry remains content on staying DAY AFTER DAY at this place and listening to the strange stories (along with some weird masturbation sounds) going on at this place. Remember the other chick who's been knocked out by the car crash on what seems like a month ago? She finally wakes up and Terry's finally in a hurry of getting out of this place. But sickle-swinger is back. Whoa! Watch out! The killer now goes by the name of axe-basher now! Run, Terry, Run!

Alright. So I guess this movie has it's share of defenders, but after willing to give this a second look, this movie just seemed to go on for 3 hours. Waay too slow of getting anywhere. Now this was expected since writer-director Don Gronquist was looking to go back to when the earliest slashers tend to have a cast of about 5 or 6 people (rather than the high bodycount that was going in on current slashers at this time) but as we all can find out, it's tough to make an appealing or exciting slasher with such a small group because you're often left providing a ton of filler in between the "Money shots". So don't be ashamed if you happen to fall asleep during this one. And who knows, you might wake up in time for the rewarding finale.

Reviewed by Laydback