This is pretty standard haunted house fare. I’ve seen worse, I’ve seen better. What makes it stand slightly higher than normal hauntings are a few good gore scenes, including a guy being ripped in half by a window, so that half of him lays out in the yard and the other half twitches in a room. And, a severed head placed in a microwave explodes twice(once in a flashback—take what you can get, eh?).
Albert Salmi plays his usual detective role with his usual effort. Larry Pennell portrays a drunken father, and I’m pretty certain he’s been cast that way more than once, he of the Clark Gable lookalike conventions. Two useless teen daughters, a blonde and a brunette, remind me of the gals from the TV show, Too Close for Comfort. They’re both whiny and you won’t complain when the brunette gets the point.
Basically, you have a condemned witch(one who actually is in league with Satan and not some mere pagan) who is drowned in 1692, so she haunts the area surrounding the lake where she died. OK, not really a lake, more like a putrid pond(I felt bad the actors had to swim in there). So, she vows revenge before her death, kills some of the people in her own time period who were responsible(including using a massive press to crush a priest), then covertly kills people “through time” as people come and go living in homes in that area. Initially, you are led to believe you’re dealing with a haunted house, as tools and other implements rip victims asunder, but then the witch finally does show up and, kudos to the director, her face is never shown. You always see a cloaked figure in shadows and any close-ups only show a blue-black demon hand with menacing claws that grab people by the face and throw them about like rag dolls. One part shows a lady grabbed by the head and dragged off camera, probably my favorite part. There is sort of a twist ending, but more seasoned horror veterans will spot it from almost the very beginning.
Recommended for haunting fans, but don’t take it too seriously. It’s short and has some cheese, but the gore and slightly spooky witch help things along.
