It’s pretty crazy to me that during the 70s and 80s retarded and deformed people were made to be monsters in so many horror movies. I can only imagine being a kid and horror fan back then seeing a retarded person in real life probably scared the shit out of you. Directors would just get a dumpy guy, make him stumble around in a pair of dirty underwear, tell him to grunt a lot and voilà, a living inbred nightmare. It’s lazy and pretty cruel and I really don’t care for this trope. Having said that, this film is pretty PG for the first 3/4s of its runtime, outside of a brief peeping tom nude scene. The last quarter though delivers the goods, and I was surprised at the genuine emotion it conveyed at the end. Both Lassick and Goldoni give performances better than this film deserves, and though there’s barely any fx work to speak of, the atmosphere and tension make up for the budgetary constraints.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ out of ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐