A cheap, messy sci-fi horror thriller of fears, nightmares and malevolence that offers some arresting and disturbing images but collapses under its shonky world-building, unmotivated narrative.
With it's slight European feel and a look very much of the Hammer Horror style this horror (with sci-fi) has become a bit of a cult favourite although I suspect that's more a nostalgic issue with people who flocked to see it back on its first release when it was the go-to late night film at many cinemas. It had benefitted from a big TV advertising campaign which focused on the infamous flying sphere sequence and drew audiences in and that sequence still garners excitement from some even today. The film is a sort of one man band effort with director Don Coscarelli writing, producing, directing and editing and it shows because it's really a poorly written and very clunky film that makes little sense and has some clumsy continuity errors. The narrative is influenced around the Hammer like vampire and zombie films with lots of coffins, shadows and strange things glimpsed every so often and there's even a pair of boobs for good measure. The story is simple and daft. A young boy (Michael Baldwin), mourning his recently deceased parents, becomes suspicious about the funeral home that is in a big country house and overseen by weird 'Tall Man' (Angus Scrimm). The boy and his elder brother investigate and discover the whole thing is a cover for aliens who reanimate human corpses into murderous dwarfs and send them back to their home planet for use as slave labour. None of it is presented in any remotely believable way and the presentation is about effect over good story telling. The final ending still rankles with many! Viewed today it's a cheap B movie horror more laughable than scary and if you've never seen it then don't expect too much.