not a bad and a it credit to be ( hooper do far bad ) more so disappointing for me . such an imaginative concept and which be never really tap in to by hooper with his economical direction and even less so in the smoky ( excuse the pun ) writing . it go so sinister and over the top in a dead serious tone and become ridiculous and unfocused let the whole pessimistic mystery or conspiracy laced narrative be easily telegraph to end on something completely abrupt . because of that and the pacing go on to be rather sluggish and brad dourif ( cool to see him in a leading role ) seem to struggle with an off balance performance and despite etch out a bemusedly quirky intensity to his off colour character . even though it cheaply do and there a competent technical attitude to it . however it doesn not seem to go anywhere out of the ordinary with it idea and want to plaster in nasty jolt ( which some do work ) and strikingly steam special effect ( flame and flame everywhere ) instead . hooper do display some stylishly frenetic imagery ( more so towards the latter end ) and and the camera work be swiftly manoeuvre and the beaming score be titillate . the performance be bit all over the shop with the appearance of william prince and cynthia bain and dey young and jon cypher and melinda dillon . also geroge buck flower and john landis have small and but amuse cameo especially landis . nothing surprise and but it passably engage .