The Unseen follows a small news crew (Barbara Bach, Karen Lamm and Lois Young) to the town of Solvang, California to cover a town festival. When they arrive, they find their hotel's accidentally been booked, and they have to drive to a neighboring area to try and track down some hospitality. There, they meet Ernest Keller (Sydney Lassick), an extremely friendly old man who offers to let the girls stay at the home where he and his wife (Lelia Goldoni) live. The trio accepts, unaware that their decision to stay with the Kellers will end with all three of them encountering The Unseen.

The first problem with The Unseen is the direction (more on this in the special features). For whatever reason, the film fails to build suspense, mistaking silence for terror and ignoring the power of editing. The first example is a sequence where Mrs. Keller makes a horrible discovery, which is poorly and awkwardly intercut with Lamm's character (also named Karen) returning to the house and potentially making the same discovery. The shots are composed nicely (most of the shots in the movie are well-designed), and there's a creepy money shot the film takes its time revealing, but the sequence is dull. The movie also piles on the melodramatic imagery, such as a character squeezing the juice out of a bowl full of grapes while being choked to death, and a character dramatically dropping a wine glass, letting it shatter on the floor, as if The Unseen is meant to be some sort of art film. Another extended sequence involves a character essentially talking to themselves, which fails to dredge up any dramatic tension.

Another obvious strike against The Unseen is a number of distinct similarities to Psycho. A crazy hotel owner tortured by visions, voices and a horrible secret in his basement takes on a blonde visitor (well, three in this case)? Placed side by side, there are plenty of differences, and I'm not accusing any of The Unseen's six writers of plagiarism, but I think there's more than a touch of clear inspiration being taken here. Beyond that, none of the characters are well-developed. Bach's character Jennifer is being followed by a jilted ex-boyfriend (Douglas Barr) who lost a shot at football stardom due to an unfortunate leg injury. Unfortunately, he's got no personality, and his injury only serves to fuel an unintentionally funny moment in the last five minutes. I suppose we're supposed to care just because he's there, but I'm not that easy. Jennifer's co-workers are also barely-fleshed-out (although Lois Young shows more than her fair share of literal flesh in a hilariously dated scene where someone peeps through a keyhole).

All of this would be okay if the movie built to something interesting, but the reveal of the actual Unseen is one of the movie's most disappointing moments. As always, I try to write spoiler-free reviews, so I won't reveal what happens, but rest assured it's more goofy than scary. In 1980, the scene might have played with a bit of outrageous verve, but today, the third act is just another brilliantly-lit sign of the movie's quaintness. The only part that really got a reaction out of me was the aforementioned use of Jennifer's ex, and I doubt my loud laughing was the reaction the filmmakers intended.

Not everything with a B-movie tone, a few recognizable actors and some fervent online fans is a legitimate cult classic, and The Unseen proves it by remaining decidedly dull for the short time it takes to watch it. Aside from some brief full frontal nudity, a small amount of blood and the title character, there's nothing interesting going on in this movie, and most of those elements fail to function the way they're supposed to. The resulting movie is just a shadow of other, better picture, and the third act sends it spinning off into its own unique realm of half-baked ideas. Remember: just because everyone's digging holes in the ground and pulling something out doesn't mean that they've found buried treasure.

The DVD
Well, Code Red sent me this 2-disc set in a seriously abused single-disc case, with the second disc included in a disc sleeve, but I presume the actual retail release will come in a 2-disc case. The front cover has cool poster art, but the back cover design (mainly the fonts and exceedingly basic layout of the images) make this look like a really amateur effort when Code Red is a reasonably reknowned distributor. The disc art consists of poorly zoomed-in (and thus, terrible-looking) versions of the front cover and an image from the back, and no insert is included.

The Video and Audio
Every once in awhile, this 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation will look good, on par with other low-budget 1980's films, but 90% of the time, the image is literally crawling with mosquito noise, especially when things get dark. Blacks rarely get darker than light gray, and while there's a good amount of detail here, overall the image usually looks soft or blurry. Colors can be pretty good, but they're also wildly unstable, often fluxuating in brightness and tint within a shot, and things tend to look a bit washed out. On top of all that, there's also a slew of print damage, including flecks, scratches and lines throughout the movie. I doubt any of this will bother any die hard Unseen fans out there, since this is probably the best it's looked since it was in theaters, but don't expect any miracles.

The audio is mono, and it's on the fuzzy side. For the most part, I could understand it, but occasionally a line or two gets garbled out. Like the picture, I wouldn't really expect the movie to sound any better, but be prepared to decipher a few lines. No subtitles are provided, which is a real shame.

The Extras
Disc 1 kicks off with a short automatic introduction (0:24) before the film, by actors Doug Barr and Stephen Furst.

Next up is an audio commentary with producer Tony Unger and star Stephen Furst. One of the more notable things that this commentary reveals (as does a glance at the IMDb page), is that director Peter Foleg is actually a psuedonym for Friday the 13th Part V helmer Danny Steinmann. Originally I'd attributed all of the poor direction to "Foleg", but not only does Foleg not exist, but Steinmann reportedly claimed they'd taken all of the scary parts out of his movie, so I suppose I shouldn't necessarily blame him either. The rest of the commentary is good-natured, but there are gaps of silence, and even when the participants are talking, they're not talking so much about The Unseen as they are things peripheral to the movie, probably because the movie itself doesn't inspire much to say.

Two on-camera interviews with Doug Barr (6:57) and Furst (9:22) follow. Much like the commentary, Barr and Furst are both enthusiastic and friendly, but there's just not that much of note to say about The Unseen. Even Barr agrees, pointing out that he didn't contribute much to the film and that he doesn't remember much about the filming.

still gallery (2:39) and the film's original theatrical trailer (2:10). Trailers for other Code Red releases of The Farmer, Butcher, Baker, NIghtmare Maker (aka Night Warning), Sole Survivor, Beyond the Door, The Dead Pit, The Visitor and Terror Circus are also included.

Disc 2 contains two more interviews, from make-up effects men Craig Reardon (38:07) and Tom Burman (24:45). Both men chat at length about several topics, including how they came to be involved in the makeup on the project, Steinmann's Psycho influences and generally high-minded ideas about the movie being made and detailing the overall experience of production. These interviews are fairly interesting even though I didn't like the movie, although they probably could have been cut down a little bit.

The second disc concludes with another still gallery (3:50), but this time the images are from Reardon's personal collection, including test slides, sketches and various on-set production stills.

Conclusion
Unless you're a hardcore fan of Barbara Bach, 80's horror, or, um...Stephen Furst (?), there's no need to check out this DVD in the hopes that you'll be seeing the next long-forgotten classic. Not even a couple of interesting extended interviews are enough to save the movie's lackluster qualities. Skip it.