Unhinged (1982)

UK 88 Films DVD edition with turnable sleeve

The 2004 US Brentwood DVD edition



I saw this strange lowbudget little slasher somewhere around 2004 when the US DVD (sleeve seen above) was released and i liked it a lot.
A sometimes poorly acted (on some parts, eeeh, the girls) psycho horror slasher with an odd atmosphere and a nice setting with the old
house in the middle of the woods. Don Gronquist co-scripted, edited, produced and directed it, and shot it in Oregon in 1980.

An obscurity that for some reason was included on the British Video Nasties list, even though the on screen violence isn't that heavy, but
the great ending scene was delightfully intense. Janet Penner and Virginia Settle were fine too as the unhappy mother and daughter couple.
Laurel Munson and Sara Ansley as 2 of the girls may not have been that great as actresses but they did do well in the 2 shower sequences.

Nancy

The Story: Three girls are on their way to a rock-concert travelling by car but take the wrong turn somewhere and get lost. After hitting a tree
branch they have a crash, and when waking up, Terry (Laurel Munson), Nancy (Sara Ansley) and Gloria (Barbara Lusch) find themselves
been taken care of by Marian Penrose (J. E. Penner). Norman (her handy-man) found the girls unconcious in the crashed car and took them to
the mansion, the huge Penrose house, situated in the middle of nowhere, in the outback in a huge forest.
The mansion where Marian lives with her wheelchair bound mother Edith (Virginia Settle), a strange and unhappy couple maybe, but nice enough
to accommodate the girls until the muddy roads can be travelled again and they can notify their parents at the nearest village. No phones at the
Penrose mansion.

Marian Penrose

Gloria lies unconcious in her bed, but Terry and Nancy are having dinners and quiet evenings with the Penrose's where the old lady behaves
strangely and tell them about the sad fate of the Penrose family, once high-society rich but now isolated in the woods due to a scandal.
Marian plays the piano and ... Terry sees a man moving about on the outside and she hears someone who moans in the night. She also remembers
that, when they're still in the car, the car-radio warned about girls going missing after walking a nearby trekking trail in the woods.

Janet Penner was great as Marian, and the ending was quite effective too (surely inspired by 1960 Psycho and William Castle's 1961 Homicidal).

This UK 88 Films 2015 DVD release offers 2 versions of the film, a fullscreen version (as in the old US Brentwood release) and a widescreen
version, with an english mono audio. Extras are an audio commentary by Don Gronquist (low-key and mostly silent though) and a trailer, plus
some 88 Films trailers.

The old US DVD had as extras a TV interview with Don Gronquist and J. E. Penner, and an awful "comedy narration" where 5 loosers on weed
smeared the film trying to be funny which they're NOT. Try to do something of worth yourselves instead you total losers