A prologue takes us to 1857 where an evil slave trader named George Masterson (Ramsey) has a curse put on him by his wife and some slaves in the attic of his house. The slaves give the wife a stone that will protect her and her son from the evil George. Jump 130 years and Dr. David Young (Stevens) moves into the same house with his girlfriend Kate (Keller) who at one time was a mental patient of his and her son (Segal). Kate starts having nightmares and hallucinations while David starts becoming abusive and acting like the former owner of the house. This is pretty standard low budget fair for the mid 1980's. There are a lot of nightmares (the Elm Street influence) but some of them are effective at getting a few good scares. Masterson is a good old fashioned monster and his visions and appearance is unsettling and scary. The movie splits in two with Kate and her boy having nightmares and David being possessed by Masterson's spirit. This gives the movie a very uneven feel and would have worked better as a whole if they had chosen one clear path. Still, Director Richard Friedman has some good moments like the ending dream state Kate and her son are in, is quite unpredictable and manages some suspense. Stevens is very wooden in the lead role which doesn't help. Scared Stiff is good as a decent time waster which will deliver a few scares and chills along the way.
Review of Scared Stiff
