Product Details

• Actors: May Britt, Cameron Mitchell, Aldo Ray, William Gray Espy, Ben Hammer
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Victory Multimedia
• VHS Release Date: September 13, 1995
• Run Time: 98 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6303690602
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #340,694 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Snip-Snip..., September 29, 2005

By 

Bindy Sue Frønkünschtein "bigfootsalienbaby" (under the rubble) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Haunts [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Ingrid (May Britt) lives on a farm with her uncle Carl (Cameron "The Demon" Mitchell), spending her days milking a goat and having disturbing flashbacks about her childhood traumas. Meanwhile, a scissor-wielding maniac is killing women around town. There are several suspects for the sheriff (Aldo Ray) to be wary of. There's Frankie, the young, smarmy playboy who chops meat at the butchershop. Then, there's the stranger who just arrived in town. And we also have uncle Carl to wonder about. Ingrid seems semi-normal, but she starts to unravel as the story progresses. Has she really been attacked by the madman? Twice?? What about her hallucinations about blood? Is she just cracking up? HAUNTS is an average little thriller / chiller with some above average asperations. The characters are genuine and even endearing, in a Mayberry sort of way. I especially liked Ingrid and the sheriff. However, a lot of what is supposed to be mysterious and scary comes across as confusing and rather dull. I still recommend it for a night of 70s cheese...

3.0 out of 5 stars Thriller with Some Interesting Twists and Turns, April 19, 2011

By 

Lonnie E. Holder "The Review's the Thing" (Columbus, Indiana, United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Haunts ("The Veil") (1977) (DVD)

May Britt, whose greatest claim to fame may have been her marriage to Sammy Davis, Jr., plays Ingrid, a deeply religious woman. Someone molested Ingrid as a child. A series of attacks by a scissors-wielding person seems to be making Ingrid relive the molestation in her mind. Ingrid is also in fear of someone raping her. While the scissors-wielding person is one of the people she fears, it seems she is worried about most men, except her uncle. I will discuss Ingrid's Uncle a bit more in a moment.

We do see a murder by the scissor-wielding maniac at the beginning of the movie that sets the tone for Ingrid's fears.

Frankie, who works at the local meat market, attacks Ingrid twice. One of the things that bothered me was that Frankie's attacks on Ingrid seemed different to me from the attacks on other people. Then there was the stranger in town. Strangers are always easy to blame for attacks. However, in most modern thrillers the designated stranger is usually there to provide distraction from the real killer.

The one person in this movie, besides Ingrid, who is strange is Ingrid's uncle. He seems to appear and disappear with regularity. While I had Ingrid's uncle pegged as a possible attacker, when Frankie attacks Ingrid I got confused. Fortunately, Uncle Carl, played by veteran actor Cameron Mitchell, provides some answers in the final scene of the movie, so things do get a bit more clear at the end.

Though this movie focuses too much on Ingrid's flashbacks and Ingrid's concerns about a possible attack until something actually happens, as the movie nears the end things heat up dramatically. A shower scene near the end of this movie gave me flashbacks of the shower scene in the Alfred Hitchcock's version of "Psycho." Things happen quite quickly in the last fifteen minutes of the movie and a lot is crammed in, so you have to watch closely to understand, or at least, be prepared to understand, what is happening. Even watching closely I was a little confused until the very end. Some surreal moments near the end added to my confusion. The surreal moments were likely deliberate to keep the end as much of a surprise as possible.

While this movie is not one of those you put on your "must watch" or "must have" list, it is worth a watch for the surprise ending. Some viewers may guess certain aspects of the ending, but guessing and seeing are two different things. I was moderately surprised at part of the ending and I did enjoy watching this movie, but I doubt I will watch this movie again.

Picture Quality: Mostly acceptable, but some of the scenes were too dark. I am unsure of whether the dark scenes were that way when filmed or whether the film had degraded.

Sound Quality: Average for a movie in the public domain.

Good luck!

3.0 out of 5 stars Slightly Better Than Average '70s Psychological Thriller, December 23, 2010

By 

Kasey G (Toronto, ON) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Haunts [VHS] (VHS Tape)

**NOTE - This review may contain spoilers**

What do you get when you take one part "Repulsion", one part "Homicidal" and one part "Sheriff Lobo"? The answer is "Haunts", an unassuming '70s thriller no one has heard of but one that can pass 90 minutes with little discomfort.

May Britt (who IS she?) is a Scandinavian farm woman who looks like Jean Arliss from William Castle's "Homicidal". In one scene, much to my delight, she even smashes a picture frame with the same demented frustration as Arliss did in "Homicidal"'s flower shop scene.

We learn from the start she's a little off-balanced because she has dreamy childhood flashbacks involving attempted molestation (as she's milking her goat!).

What's upsetting her even more is that a scissor-wielding maniac is stalking and killing the women in her rural community.

It's clear that May is frigid and uncomfortable around men due to her past. She is repulsed by the butcher, with whom the town tramp Nell flirts shamelessly. (Nell's big scene at the local watering hole as she switches back and forth between lonely drunk and big-mouthed bitch were the comic highlight of the film.) May also rebuffs the advances of the new guy in the church choir.

As the movie progresses, May is raped by the butcher, not once, but twice, and I had to keep guessing to figure out where all this was going.

I assumed there was going to be some sort of lesbian revelation, or that her strange uncle (Cameron Mitchell) was somehow responsible.

3/4 through, there is a police chase in a sawmill which I thought would produce some serious gore, but it did not deliver.

Needless to say, things got a little muddled towards the end but it did make for anything but a routine who-dun-it.

While most people would be disappointed by the slow pacing and lack of gore, I rather enjoy this type of film much more than the big-budget CGI, MTV-style edited garbage of today.

FYI I got my copy in a budget-priced box set called "50 Chilling Classics".