My quick rating – 4.3/10. There’s something wonderfully suspicious about a horror movie that opens with ominous sounds and a guy climbing into an attic like he’s just volunteered to become the opening kill. You know the horror rulebook by now. Nothing good has ever come from investigating strange noises above your head. Sure enough, the attic door slams shut, the title card rolls, and Sight Unseen is off and running. Well, more like walking, this isn’t the most action packed horror flick.
The story follows siblings Emma (Lauren Pisano), Dustin (Daniel Burns), and Beth (Kellie Spill), who reunite after inheriting their estranged father’s secluded cabin following his mysterious death. Emma arrives looking ready for a board meeting, Dustin apparently lost a bet and showed up wearing a halter top, and Beth somehow materializes into the movie like she wandered in from another set. Their neighbour Grace (Debra Lord Cooke) casually mentions that she never knew their father had children and explains that poor old Mark supposedly died by falling down the stairs. Horror movie logic immediately kicked in for me because…yeah, I’m not buying that for a second.
One thing Sight Unseen gets right is the sibling dynamic. Instead of the typical horror cliché where everyone hates each other and spends ninety minutes screaming insults before the monster even arrives, these three actually feel like siblings. They argue, annoy each other, and carry some family issues, but it feels natural. Not clearly scripted. There’s more family drama than I expected, though, which occasionally slows the pacing.
The cabin itself also deserves a mention. Early dialogue suggests it’s basically a two-bedroom place, yet every exterior shot makes it look like someone accidentally inherited a rural mansion. Unless half the house exists in another dimension, the math simply isn’t adding up. (See for yourself below)
The performances are a mixed bag. Whether it’s the acting itself or the dialogue they’re working with, some reactions come across pretty stiff. Characters occasionally respond to terrifying situations with the emotional urgency of someone reading tomorrow’s weather forecast. Fortunately, the film never completely falls apart because of it.
Considering the obvious budget limitations, Sight Unseen actually does a respectable job. Instead of opting for effects it cannot possibly afford, Stephen Parkhurst wisely opts to keep the scare within the limits of the film itself. It is a pleasure to see a B-budget movie knowing its limitations rather than pretending to be something else.
No. This is not the sort of breakout flick that catapults its director into the limelight immediately. In terms of impact, this film falls far short of recent independent productions like Obsession. Nevertheless, Parkhurst is competent enough at the helm of his camera for me to look forward to watching what else he does in the future. Though not perfect, Sight Unseen is quite an engaging supernatural thriller that clearly knows exactly what kind of film it should be. And sometimes that’s half the battle in indie horror.
