This is one of those films I remember
seeing the video box artwork for and being intrigued by it, but didn't actually get round to viewing till many years later.
Set in a small rural community in New England, the residents of Ludlow are having a bit of a shindig to celebrate their
bicentennial at their local community centre (a barn), when the mayor announces that a piece of the towns history has been
returned to them.
An old Harmonium (pump organ) that belonged to the Ludlow family, who founded the town during the colonial era, has been donated by their estate and the Mayor is delighted to have this unique piece of history back in their possession. Though strangely, it looks more like a Piano than a pump organ, and doesn't appear to be all that old for an instrument that's supposedly over 200 years old and stranger still, when someone plays it, it actually sounds more like a harpsichord, but anyways...
Not long after its return, people in the town start getting bumped off by ghostly demons in bad period costume. A news reporter, Debra (Stephanie Cushna), who lived in Ludlow many years ago and has returned to do a piece on the towns history, discovers that the Ludlow family were executed for Witchcraft all those years ago and their ghosts are now seeking revenge on the descendants of their accusers that still live in the town (took them bloody long enough didn't it?), as their ghosts happen to be inside the piano/harmonium (eh?).
Made back in 1982 by the same director who gave us "The Giant Spider Invasion" and featuring a bunch of no-name actors, who haven't appeared in anything else particularly note-worthy. The film appears to ape the basic plot of "The Fog", about ghosts returning to avenge themselves on the descendants of some town that did them wrong. But with a haunted piano instead of fog (yes you heard that right). Not the best low budget film from the early 80s that I've reviewed, but not exactly the worst either.
The film seems to have disappeared into relative obscurity since its VHS days. There have been a few grey-market label releases of this film on DVD, which appear to have been transferred from an old video mastertape, so quality is not the best. So if you really want to see this, your best bet would be to hunt round some video sharing sites. However, I'd recommend this only to those who are morbidly curious.
