Plot: What’s it about?
After being released from an institution, Jessica takes refuge in a quaint secluded area to gain some time back and just relax. She is accompanied by her husband Duncan and his best friend Woody. On the way to the new house in Connecticut Jessica begins to see things, things being a woman dressed all in white. Not sure what it is or if she is starting to relapse into her craziness, she doesn’t inform the others of what she saw and just goes on as if nothing happened. After arriving at the house, Jessica is the first to enter the house. As she enters she sees a figure run past the stairs on the 2nd floor. Before she even says anything Duncan reveals that he also saw it so she doesn’t think she’s going crazy, although she’s already starting to feel like that. After investigating upstairs, Duncan finds a young woman who has been squatting in the house while nobody lived there, her name is Emily. Jessica doesn’t want to kick her out for the night so they all invite her to stay the night. But Emily isn’t the problem, the next day Jessica begins to see the figure again in the apple orchard, so naturally she follows her. The girl leads Jessica to a dead body and runs away. Things begin to get creepier from there. I don’t want to give away too much of the movie so check it out.
I know the movie is from the early 70’s and usually I enjoy those horror movies, but this one really didn’t do it for me. It did an excellent job of setting the atmosphere up for something, but in the end I wasn’t at all surprised by what happened. It’s a relatively unknown movie with an unknown cast that tries to deliver on a shoe string budget, but comes up a little short. If you’re looking for a good scare this Halloween I would choose a different one.
Video: How does it look?
Presented in 1.77:1 widescreen the video transfers pretty well. Obviously since the original was shot in 1971 it’s going to have an old feel to it, but the quality itself was pretty good. There were a few instances where I noticed imperfections in the film itself. They weren’t the typical artifacts you see in bad DVD transfers, but rather lines and dust on the actual film negatives. Majority of the film isn’t plagued by these imperfections, but you’ll be able to tell when they appear. Other than this minor detail the film looks good. All the colors are very vibrant and the blacks are very black.
Audio: How does it sound?
With only a 2.0 Dolby Stereo track to choose from I was a little disappointed although I’m not really sure the movie would have benefited from a 5.1 mix. Being as it’s from the early 70’s, there isn’t much of a soundtrack to this film. Most of the sounds you hear are loud sharp noises meant to jar you. They actually sound like screeching tires and get very annoying very fast. When these sounds come into the mix they are very loud and very distracting. I know they are meant to startle you, but if you’re trying to listen to the dialogue and then the soundtrack comes crashing in it could wake the whole neighborhood. Which leads into my next point, the dialogue is a little quiet. It wouldn’t be a problem if the rest of the soundtrack was as quiet, but it’s not, so the low dialogue adds for some really loud “screeching” later in the film.
Supplements: What are the extras?
There are no extras on this disc.
