It all begins with settling in an old mansion of a psychiatrist and his beloved, who a year ago was a patient. She has a son who began to feel the first unkind aura of the dwelling, which stores the real skeletons, but not in the closet, but in the chest in the attic. Despite the perfect rhyme of the previous two words, the family ideal did not come out, because in the walls of the house there is something frightening, like an ominous echo of the past, when the former owner of the mansion was cursed by black slaves for cruelty, allowing his monstrous actions to acquire the appropriate image of a monster that replaced a human. This plot suggests a typical obsessed house and the people in it. Everything is so, but with its own flavor, when the new inhabitants of the house find with a chest more score, diary and witch talisman in the form of a split native mask, beginning to learn the terrible history of the last century. And the more often they play a tune from someone’s notes, read notes or look at a broken trinket, the more inexplicable things happen, as if wanting to revive an old tragedy in the new century.
The film has typical techniques for its direction with a series of nightmares, daytime obsessions and supernatural manifestations with attempts of a fatal attempt on the living who found themselves in a mystical fiefdom, where an evil spirit awakened. The couple in love are increasingly quarreling, involuntarily adopting the roles of the past masters - a tyrant and his frightened wife with a child, simultaneously complicating the relationship with fear for the resumption of mental disorder in a woman overcome by bad dreams. Such a set looks secondary, reducing the film to the category of those that are designed to pass the time when the most famous with an identical plot have already been viewed. Some viewers will see restrained echoes of Stanley Kubrick’s popular “The Shining”, others will notice the proximity to Dan Curtis’ “Night of Dark Shadows”, where a similar settlement in an enchanted house and the relocation of evil souls was much more successful with excellent musical accompaniment. It is no coincidence that the only recognizable actor in the film will be Andrew Stevens, who has played in many and produced even more productions of category B, because the script is replete with absurd behavior of characters characteristic of unpretentious horror films. The ridiculous acting, dialogue and inadvertent blinking of the dead characters in the frame causes a smile instead of the necessary genre atmosphere. In its rhythm, the work is more like a TV movie, which is very smoothly rocking, saving the most interesting for the climax. The apogee, despite the gaggy visuals, turned out quite exciting, showing the spacious house with an unpredictable enchanted structure, where each door leads to a different creepy place or a distorted time period. A series of nightmares in reality, which imposed the past on the present, fascinates, entertaining with a good sham and makeup, and the main villain is not inferior to the monsters from the cult dilogy “Demona” by Lamberto Bava, strangling with similar claws, fangs and sparkling eyes. Unfortunately, this is reserved for the most, most dessert, which should still be waited for, having passed through the modest vicissitudes of an equally modest horror story. She is one of those that a lover of the genre periodically catches up among the inconspicuous, who have not gained attention and fame, hoping to find a worthy movie at random. It has a certain charm of the eighties with man-made effects and rubber monsters, however, future viewers are not recommended to watch. Remembering the title of the film, it is not considered to be terrible, but you want to leave it alone.
5 out of 10