Strong and Moving!

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

So let's start with the fact that this isn't a well made movie. It isn't written well (Mark Frost of Twin Peaks had a hand in the writing which is odd) it isn't edited well, it wasn't even thought out clearly in advance, but I love it.It has everything a B Movie gem should have. Terrible Editing, an amazing soundtrack, a story that doesn't quite make sense, and a mind blowing grand finale! The story is about an abusive and evil slave owner in the 1700's who is cursed and now his ghost is haunting the mansion he used to live in. A new family moves into the place in 1987 and is being tormented in each their own way by the "Masterson Curse".This movie actually has great special effects when you finally get to them and the ending is somewhat of an acid trip like experience. Reasons like this, the rarity, and of course the soundtrack are why I love this long forgotten gem.... that nobody seems to like. If you like finding old school B Movies for a good laugh then this is the movie for you. It is a little slow paced but the scary parts to me are rather creepy. Love what they did here.

A prologue takes us to 1857 where an evil slave trader named George Masterson (Ramsey) has a curse put on him by his wife and some slaves in the attic of his house. The slaves give the wife a stone that will protect her and her son from the evil George. Jump 130 years and Dr. David Young (Stevens) moves into the same house with his girlfriend Kate (Keller) who at one time was a mental patient of his and her son (Segal). Kate starts having nightmares and hallucinations while David starts becoming abusive and acting like the former owner of the house. This is pretty standard low budget fair for the mid 1980's. There are a lot of nightmares (the Elm Street influence) but some of them are effective at getting a few good scares. Masterson is a good old fashioned monster and his visions and appearance is unsettling and scary. The movie splits in two with Kate and her boy having nightmares and David being possessed by Masterson's spirit. This gives the movie a very uneven feel and would have worked better as a whole if they had chosen one clear path. Still, Director Richard Friedman has some good moments like the ending dream state Kate and her son are in, is quite unpredictable and manages some suspense. Stevens is very wooden in the lead role which doesn't help. Scared Stiff is good as a decent time waster which will deliver a few scares and chills along the way.

Dreadful, justly obscure ghost story. Mary Page Keller and Andrew Stevens play a couple who move into a haunted house. Then Stevens is possessed by a ghost and begins to kill people...or something like that. To be honest I had trouble staying awake so the story is kind of vague.Dumb, by the numbers "horror" film loaded with false scares and stupid sequences. Like a workman, working outside the house, is killed and hung...and supposedly hangs there for days on end with no one noticing. Or Keller has a pointless dream sequence where a co worker slashes her throat...and leads to nothing. It's only in there to throw some cheap gore into our face.Keller (who can be good) is lousy and Stevens (who has never been good) is even worse. Dull and pointless. Avoid.

Awful film about a family moving into a new house and falling prey to a rubber faced African voodoo monster that possesses Andrew Stevens and forces him to kill his family. The special effects are really that terrible, the entire cast is bland, and the situations that unfold in the film are a laugh riot. Good to watch and make fun of, otherwise avoid this piece of junk masquerading as a horror film. Rated R.