So I was in Suncoast Video and I hadn't found much on the $9.99 and under rack which I didn't already own so I made a rare voyage over to their "regularly priced" movies. I usually avoid anything over ten bucks because I'm cheap and even though I have a great love for bad horror movies, I hate it when I've paid $25 for one. But, on this particular day I took a risk and the first thing I saw was a Unhinged. I'd never heard of the flick but in big letters on the front of the DVD case it said "Banned!". On the back said how the film was banned in Britain and was called among other things disgusting and perverse. Well, that was all it took and twenty-five dollars later I was the proud owner of this rarely seen movie. Was it worth it? Read on, my friend, read on.

The movie begins with a long credit sequence and then about a minute of black screen(I mention this because similar forms of padding are frequent in the movie). But all was well when it was soon followed up with a shower scene. No one gets killed or anything, just a girl showering. Okay, that's worth $10 right there so I was feeling better about my purchase. Once the actual story begins, we meet three young women who are on their way to a concert when they crash their car. They're taken in by a not-so-kindly old lady and the woman's oppressed daughter. See, this was Misery before Stephen King and Kathy Bates. Okay, I'm just kidding but there are similarities.

Unhinged is sort of Psycho meets Misery without the classiness of either production. I mean, half an hour in there's another shower scene with two of the girls bathing together. They didn't "get it on", that would have ruined the scene actually, they were just showering and talking. Now that's the kind of sleaze I like in my horror movies. The plot is actually pretty darn good and I won't give it away because there's a very cool twist which you might not see coming(unless you've seen thousands of horror movies like I have, then you'll probably figure it out after reading the box).

The acting is fair, nothing that's going to win awards but the girls get the job done. The biggest problem I had with the film is that there is a great deal of padding. Lots of shots of trees or the mansion, etc. They also could have cut some of the dialogue scenes which added nothing, except some much needed running time. The blatant padding stopped dead any momentum which the film builds up in it's better scenes,

I'd recommend Unhinged, but on a marketing note, I was rather disappointed that a film that was banned wasn't more violent/disgusting/perverse. The gore scenes are well done but more tame than just about anything you'd see in a Friday the 13th movie. The nudity is there(thank you!)but it's all harmless. The themes in the movie might be disturbing to your average schoolmarm or nun but to a horror fan it's old hat. I guess I set my standards too high... or is that too low?