 Hello, and welcome to another episode of Frightfully Forgotten Horror Movies, but before we get started, what are we drinking? Today we're drinking Death Ship Glacier Smash IPA. Alright, today we're going to bring to you 1976's Haunts. Haunts is directed by Herb Freed. He co-wrote this movie with his wife, Ann Reese. May Britt is in this, and this was her last movie, actually. Tied up with Sammy Davis Jr. Cameron Mitchell is in this. He was in the Toolbox Murders, which we covered. You could click the link above. He was in a lot of other pretty cool movies too, but we can't mention them all. And Aldo Roy is in this, and he's in a ton of movies too, but most of the movies he's in, he just plays the same character, a cop. So Haunts starts off with this family eating dinner, lame-ass family, intercut with this figure putting on these leather gloves, and getting these scissors, and then it goes back to the family. Oh, you're not gonna eat that? Then it shows these scissors coming down, and then this figure dragging this body behind him. One of the girls goes out to like the outside shed to get something, opens the door, and sees this body massacred in the shed. Amongst all the canned goods and wares? We're then introduced to our main character here, Ingrid, played by May Britt. She's like on this farm, and she lives there with her uncle who's staying with her. Feeding the goats, and then milking them. She goes to town, and of course the talk amongst the town is this murder that happened, you know, it's a small town, something like this is devastating. Butcher's shop is the guy's chopping up all this meat and everything, so uncomfortable. He's kind of the town bad boy, and he's always hitting on all the women in this butcher. You want me to come over to your house and show you how to cut meat? Yeah, that's real sexy. Ingrid's like pretty religious, and we see her at this church choir thing, and they're finishing up, and there's a new guy there, a new guy in town, Bill. I want to go out for a coke, we can just talk, and she blows them right off, and she doesn't want anything to do with basically anybody. She's pretty much a loner. Ingrid and her friend are walking home after choir practice, interrupted by Frankie. He pulls up and the truck starts hitting on them and asks them if they want to ride, and Ingrid basically wants nothing to do with him either. She splits up with her friend, her friend goes her way, and Ingrid goes her way. And on her way home, she gets attacked by this figure, you know, in the mask and everything, and she fights him off and hits him in the face with this rock and runs inside, calling for help, calling for her uncle Carl. Uncle Carl! He shows up, and he doesn't believe her. He's like, ah, I was probably just a rabbit. Yeah, a rabbit like a jumped on you and tackled you and everything. And she's all like caught up and everything and bruised. She's all freaked out and calls the sheriff, and the sheriff is all throwing up. Results, he has that rag and everything. The sheriff also doesn't believe her, which is odd because there's a killer on the loose. It's on the loose! So why wouldn't you believe her? He's like, ah, you're just getting too worked up there. I'll come by in the morning. What if it's actually the killer? The sheriff knows that it... So anyways, it cuts to the bar in town. Nell, pretty talky, and she's kind of, she's had a few, you see. And she's kind of going from guy to guy, asking for a dance. She sits down beside the new guy, Bill, and she starts talking with him. And he's just not really receptive of her. You know, she's trying. You know, you want to buy me a drink? And she's like, well, no, not really. This is my last one. You have to get going. You got no class. She tries to get something from somebody, but she's really horny. She really wants to get laid. She gets into her car. Drunk? Yeah, of course. This is the 70s. She starts driving, and we see that somebody's in the back seat and goes and attacks her from the front. You see the car kind of driving and sort of wavering a bit, and then it stops, and then it drives straight. Yeah. To know she's dead, and the killer's taking her car. But you don't need to see any of it. It's really cool. The next day, Ingrid is in the chicken coop, and she's tending to all the chickens and stuff. And she uncovers Nell's body that's been stashed there. Seeing Nell's body brings back memories from the past in her mind. And she starts seeing flashbacks of her mother dead in the bathtub and a shower running, and her as a little girl with somebody tapping her thigh and rubbing it. So Ingrid goes back to the house and goes to take a shower. She gets attacked by Frankie, who drags her into the bedroom and sticks a knife to her throat and starts to rape her. Her uncle comes home, and he comes up to stairs and he knocks on the door, and he's like, Ingrid, you okay in there? I'm home now, so if you need anything, you just holler. And Frankie's got the knife to her throat and telling her not to say anything. And he's like, right there, right? And she's like, oh, it's pretty intense. Yeah, super intense. The next day Ingrid is so upset by what happened. She goes to church and she confesses to the priest, right? What happened and who it was. And she sees Frankie there kind of doing the same thing, talking things through. She leaves the church and she gets attacked again. The priest comes outside and actually interrupts what's going on and the killer takes off. They take Ingrid back to the hospital. When she gets home, she actually starts to rummage through the house and she finds evidence of Frankie being there and she goes to tell her uncle, look, look, it was Frankie. It really was. And she sees her uncle tied up in a chair and Frankie there by the fireplace and that's where we're going to end the plot. So if you want to see what happens to Ingrid, the poor bastard uncle who's all hog tied on the chair, even Frankie and the rest of the town's folk are watching 1976's Haunts. So Haunts is actually a very rare movie to find. It was released on VHS, but obviously way out of print now. It was also released on DVD, which is well out of print too. It was really tough to get a physical copy of this. Yeah, there's no Blu-ray release or anything. So you're super lucky that you actually have a copy of this on VHS. That's right. You found it that weird, a Hillbilly flea market could drag me to that one time. Yeah, let me tell you that blacksmith I bargained with, he was tough. It's rather well thought of for its pitch, Justin. 4K? Shit. I never had 4K in my life. Don't believe in it. No tracking. Just one rare seal tape. Good God, old man. As I thought. Your name, Griner? What you want to know for? You need someone to sell these tapes to us. Sell them to you, fool. What? Me and a buddy of mine were on YouTube. We need these tapes to review Sunday afternoon. YouTube? That's right, YouTube. What the hell do you want to go fuck around them tapes for? Because it's there. They're all right. You put that tape into VCR, can't get it out. You're gonna wish you would. Justin, let's go back to town. Get drunk. I'll give you a 30 cents for them sealed VHS tapes. I'll take 50. 50 my ass. Justin, don't play games with these people. What did you say? I said 50 my ass. Justin, I'll do it for 40. You good for 10? Yeah. I'm sure you guys can tell from the clips we've been showing that the production quality of this movie isn't great. Pretty low budget and it doesn't help that it hasn't been released in like a better format, that there's never been a really good transfer. But one thing you'll notice first, when you get past the kind of low production quality is how good the characters are in this movie. That's right. They really drive the whole movie and especially Ingrid almost kind of like carries this movie by herself. She really do feel for what Ingrid is going through. She's by herself. She kind of wants to be alone too. She doesn't want to have anything to do with any of the towns. People who are trying to help her, trying to be with her. But yet she doesn't accept anybody's help. She doesn't accept their help or their company. She just wants to be alone. And you feel lonely watching this movie. Cameron Mitchell is really good in this as Uncle Carl. All the side characters are good too and all the side actors are pretty damn good. They're pretty memorable. They all have their own place, right? Except for the sheriff. He's memorable but for the wrong reasons because like this guy, this Aldo Roy, he's in tons of stuff. You think he'd be a good actor but he kind of shit the bed in this one. Maybe he was drunk the whole time. There's a maniac loose out there and it was like this. We wanted to keep an eye out for one another. You know what I mean? He's always like forgetting his lines and taking his long pauses where he shouldn't. Yeah, yeah. Any idea who it is? Yeah. All we found at the Oldson apartment was a pair of scissors. Yeah, yeah. And it's like with that scenery he's eating all those cookies and drinking all that milk and everything. You know, you were saying? What? I asked if anybody had been hanging around. It's like you can't get everything down fast enough to say his lines. To say his lines. It's like drags on super long with him drinking this milk. How much else are you going for now? Have you noticed anything unusual around? What are you about? Be grid, Dom. Is she anything suspicious? Is she anything suspicious? This movie throws you tons of curve balls right from the get-go. And it all has to do with the killer in Ingrid. In the beginning you see the killer a little bit. Then you see Uncle Carl. And it's like ah, it's so obvious that Uncle Carl is the killer. Yeah. You just assume it's just obvious that he is. But then Frankie pulls up in the truck and he's talking with his girlfriend. His girlfriend says what happened to your head there? I had an accident in the store. Accident? What kind of accident? An accident. I don't want to talk about it. After the killer was hit by Ingrid with the rock and you're like also, I guess Frankie's the killer. It's gotta be him. Yeah. Then Frankie rapes Ingrid and takes off. It means like, well, if Frankie was the killer wouldn't have you just killed Ingrid? So is there a rapist and a killer? Yeah. You don't really know. And then they catch the killer. And they kill him. Yeah. And they shoot him down and it ends up being the new guy in town that Bill. Yeah. So then you're like, okay. So then what the fuck? Then what's going on with Frankie? And then the movie's like not even close to being over when they catch the killer. So they're like, well, there's a lot more happening yet. Yeah. Music is fantastic in this movie and it's like a haunting piano score underscored by like violin tones and everything. And it really helps to drive the emotion of what you're feeling from Ingrid. Her emotions. And it really does convey the sadness. Yeah. The music in this movie is so sad sounding and it does make you feel kind of sad too. And the atmosphere is great too for this movie. It helps drive that home as well. It's always dark and gloomy out and rainy and never sunny. No, it makes you feel like shit. It feels cold out like you kind of get the chills watching it. Now we're going to get into this spoiler heavy territory because we have to because this movie the ending is kind of everything. Yeah. It turns out that Ingrid actually commits suicide in her bathtub. And you're like, what? The main character that we are rooting for just committed suicide? Yes. Like what the hell? Like what the fuck? And then the uncle shows up. And he's all older. Yeah. He's got like gray hair now and he didn't before. Yeah. And so he was never there. He was never at the farmhouse once. And they explain it too. The last time he saw Ingrid was when he dropped her off at an orphanage when she was small. Yeah. When her parents died. So it's like, okay. So then you do start to put these things together now in your own mind. The uncle and the sheriff start to have a conversation about over beers. Yeah. The sheriff is all shitty again. Ah. It tells the uncle that she died a virgin. She was never raped. All the skin and stuff they found underneath her fingernails from the attacks was her own skin. Yeah. They show her too. It's kind of clawing herself up in the shower. You have to piece everything together yourself. They don't just spell it all out for you. You have to like really think and almost go back and watch the movie a second time, which I had to do. When is the uncle there and when isn't he there and is the uncle ever with anybody else besides Ingrid? Oh no, he's not. Yeah. Then you start to piece things together the second time as to exactly what's happening. You really have to fill in the blanks yourself and even kind of come up with your own theories. Because even at the very end something else happens and you're like what the hell is that now? Yeah. It's not that it's bad though either, right? It just adds that extra layer of complexity. I like movies like this though. Like where you have to create the ending in your own mind. It gives longevity to these movies that make them keep going, right? Yeah, like you talk about rewatchability. You almost have to rewatch this movie at least a second time to really get it. I bet everybody would have maybe a little bit of a different theory, right? Yeah. I got my theory about what happened. And so do I. Yeah. And so everybody has their own theories and that's one of the best things about this movie. This movie deals a lot with grief, how to process it, what happens when you haven't processed it properly, inner turmoil, something happening to you as a child and as you get older maybe things can trigger. Yeah, it's also disguised as a partial slasher kind of movie, right? To sort of hide those elements and weave them in and out of the story. But it's more of a mystery than anything else. It's more of a suspense thriller that's kind of got these slasher elements to it. So this movie actually has a lot of different things going on that makes it a very actually complex movie. You'll notice the production value is shitty, but for myself I sort of forgot about all of that as the movie went on just because you get so engrossed in the story. Especially at the end. Yeah. With all the twists at the end it's like you can completely forget about the crappy production quality. Yeah. Nothing else matters. If you're looking for a movie that's kind of like really one of those movies is going to mind fuck you a little bit and you have to really put on your thinking cap and like, okay, what happened? Yeah. And you are the detective almost. You have to play detective in this movie and figure out exactly what happened to Ingrid in her past to trigger a chance. It's, watch it twice. Yeah, I would say so. And then let us know what you think happened to Ingrid. Yeah. And until next time, keep drinking.