A sensuous woman, an angry artist, a mysterious puppet maker, suspicious townspeople, mischievous kids, these are the characters in THE HOUSE WITHOUT STEPS. The setting is contemporary Vermont, but it is Walter Ungerer's Vermont. The landscape, though beautiful and tranquil, is charged with an ominousness familiar to Ungerer films. Everything takes on a greater importance: time loses its boundaries. Anne Davis, a photojournalist, searches for an image she recalls from her past, a house without front steps. No-one cares. Her sister Sue has an affair with Anne's boyfriend Alan. Alan is concerned with the comforts of materialism. Arthur, a painter, wants fame and a mistress. Only Peter, the maker of gigantic, grotesque puppets, understands the meaning of Anne's search. But he is unable to communicate with anyone. Through Ungerer's vision people are transformed into inhabitants of a world that is at once ordinary and strange.