Three attractive women who work at a tv station head off to cover some sort of Bavarian carnival in Southern California. As soon as they get there they realize – “Fuck! There’s nowhere to sleep” so they head off to the next town and then the next before they are resigned to just sleep in the station wagon, damn it. Luckily, one of them has been pouting and making eyes with the town’s local museum proprietor (yep) who offers them up a bed for the night at home where he lives with his wife. YAY!

But what’s going on in The Unseen? As you know, the fine writer here at Film Miasma goes above and beyond and lowers raises the bar for film experiencin’ so let’s pour ourselves a glass of beer or wine or whatever you like and really go to town on this thing. But not to stay the night! No station wagon slumber parties here.

*Ahem*

Does it tell the story of a woman who, as a child, was unaware of the societal fatigue that came with the profession her father endured, taking fares in a subway car while her mother mended the tablecloths of the nearby wealthy, stitching and scrubbing away stains of gravy they could never afford. Does it tell of her brother who, returning from an engagement in the US / Korean War, returned home riddled with poisonous bones and sagging skin, contracted from illicit encounters in malaria riddled villages? What of the time she married young, a train railway engineer who moved her to the barren prairies of Iowa, where he contracted the croop and coughed himself to death, drowning, his lungs filled with his own blood. Or when she sold the last of her family’s silverware, taking her newborn son away from that desolation and crime to California, a new home! A new start filled with palm trees and the salty sweetness of Mother Ocean from where we began and surely we’ll end, our return from land prophesied eons ago! Is there a mention of the loss of her child to kidnapping in the late 1970s and her subsequent breakdowns and time spent IN INSTITUTIONE? No. None of this is covered here.

We merely get to see her towards the end of her life, past all of the sorrows and grief and laments of those who knew of her and her family. Omitted are the tales of her grandmother’s upbringing in a small village 50km outside of Prague; beneath a fertile hillside where a spring ran cool throughout the year. Her grandmother’s best suitor tended the ample herd of sheep whose wool would find purchase at yearly fairs and bazaars, supplying the residents with enough funding to buy coal for their hearths during the blistering, freezing winters.

Speaking of cold Czech winters, they don’t even touch on the time that her Grandmother Babek and Oskar were buried alive in their cottage during a landslide. The official transcript described it as an act of divinity but, to hear her Grandpa tell the story, that was not necessarily the case, depending on how you view these things. He used to sit her on his knee at night, before bed, and tell stories of the old country before German Occupation. He would recall the time he and Grandmother were – well mostly he – were attempting to conquer the Fire-hole of the Great Divide. According to him there was much, much protest but, as we should all learn, Perseverance Makes A Man and None But The Righteous are Called Into The Principle and, that Great day, he accomplished what he had set out for, ever since he was old enough to shave. He always liked to finish that story with an anecdote about the noises coming from the village that afternoon and how the birds took flight, the deer ran for cover and the snow came down the mountains, burying the village asunder.

But is any if that covered? No. Not at all. Instead we are introduced to a very cute, bubble blowing blond who suddenly takes sick and has to take a bath before a midday nap. She gets fully nude in front of our very eyes, as well as a peeper, and is subsequently killed by something pulling her through the furnace duct. Goodnight, dear sweet blossom. You’ll be forever remembered. Valhalla awaits.

Elsewhere, our three beauties have come across a man who gives them a room for a night or two. Why look – it’s the guy you knew from every TV show you ever watched in the 70s! But no! You’re wrong! It’s Cheswick from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest! Boy was I fucking wrong! Back to the story: he lives with his wife who constantly frowns and cries. For real – is this some comedy bit or what’s going on here? Let’s look at this backstory too, even though we have to speculate since our movie doesn’t get into much.

A Mother’s Investment:

As an infant boy our young man is raised in this house his grandparents built by hand, up to and including a fruit cellar, a nice wide porch and I don’t know what they’re called but some sort of figurative thing you can can drive your buggies or cars around, showing off your cosmopolitan style. Alone, he plays with the dolls his mother stitches for him, despite the constant beatings of his soggy, alcohol crazed father. Stop playing with those damned things!! He screeches, applying the lash. Keep it up and I’ll toss you in the cellar!! Which of course he does, and, as he’s one of those biblical old guys, rolls a one ton rock over the door to trap him down there with the possums and spiders. That’ll fecking teach ye, he puffs on his pipe!

Unable to experience the sun or even childish athletics, he grows up stunted and strange, thinking putting clothespins on his face is hilarious. One day, when his father is found dead from snakebite three counties away, the town villagers manage to pry the rock off the cellar door and free the boy, now a young man. “My heaventh, he’th hideouth!” Exclaims someone, pinching her nostrils with her fingers. “And he’th hath an erecthion!” Someone else manages before fainting right there in front of the Almighty and everyone else. Which leads us to:

Celebration of Self:

The Gentle Reader might think the author is taking an easy shot at an easy target but this uh – engorgement plays a part here. It seems, we are told through the ghostly voiceover of his father, that our man has a – ermmmm – salubrius sexual appetite and has been practicing The Lord’s Relations with dum ta dum dum – his sister! That’s not just his wife crying out there by the clothesline or while she boils chickens. It’s his sister you see and that thing Unseen down in the basement? That’s their kid.

[I just realized this thing is getting too long, should I break this up into two parts or continue??] [urrrrrrmmmmm] [arf ack]

[here comes the coin flip]

[I use an actual coin in these circumstances fyi]

[fate tells me to wrap this shit up]

[you lucky devils]

Sooooo our man and his sister made It and made a baby that’s been living in a pile of clothes and other shit down in the basement for what looks like almost two decades. One day these three chicks show up and the baby grown boy – the unseen – has the wherewithal to crawl two stories up a heating duct, chase and grab one girl and start to haul her downstairs but gets thwarted by a floor grate. Insofarastowhich a similar floor grate is used to commit a mild murder shortly after. I don’t really understand what’s going on here motivation wise since he can clearly lift the grate and roam around in his diaper and even more clearly seems to just want someone to play with but… all right.

But what do we know? Perhaps The Unseen is actually some sort of human spider who can crawl up drains and ducts like he only weighs a couple of ounces. Maybe he can transform into some sort of slithering worm and things like gravity don’t bother him. Maybe, despite all of his stomach slapping and non-sensical yelling, he doesn’t REALLY want a friend but just wants to preserve the sanctity of his family’s floors and doesn’t appreciate what those ladies are doing up there with their high heeled shoes, tapping around like some sort of fucking bird or something.

FILED UNDER: WE’VE ALL SEEN MUCH WORSE THAN THIS PLUS – BARBARA BACH BUT TOO BAD WE RAN OUT OF TIME TODAY OR WE MAYBE COULD GET INTO THE HISTORY OF HER CHARACTER TOO IN ANY CASE IF SHE NEEDS ME SHE CAN JUST GIVE ME A CALL

PS – I’ve been thinking about changing up things around here – and want to see what this looks like published: