I Watch Films: The Ghost Of Sierra De Cobre

 

The Ghost Of Sierra De Cobre

Nelson Orion is an architect with a cool house, who moonlights as a paranormal investigator. He’s asked to look into the strange case of the Mandores. Paul Mandore is blind, his mother had a fear of death so has a telephone line in her tomb – a line that has been ringing.

Everyone has secrets. Orion (“O’Ryan”) is haunted by his attempt to discover what occurred at Sierra De Cobre, where an American schoolteacher died. From a ghost, from overdosing on hallucinogens, from being poisoned? It links together in a slightly incoherent way, ending in tragedy.

This was planned as a pilot for a TV show, but it never happened, which is a pity, though perhaps we’d have forgotten it by now. Martin Landau (Mission: Impossible; Space 1999) is Orion, and he’s convincing enough. As a personal note, I generally think occult detectives should always be reluctant, so the fact all this is interfering with his attempt to save old (100 years) Los Angeles buildings, and he is regretful about a previous case seem appropriate.

Watch This: A spooky ghost story with many strange and unsettling scenes
Don’t Watch This: The high concept ideas are rather silly if you think about them for a moment.