ALONE IN THE DARK

At first glance, you would think that a 1982 American horror film starring Jack Palance, Martin Landau and Donald Pleasence would be a can't miss proposition. Palance and Landau were both future Best Supporting Actor Oscar winners at the time while Pleasence was a seasoned, genre veteran. You'd think this would be a good movie, one well worth your time if you're a horror film fan. 

And you'd be wrong.

ALONE IN THE DARK is the story of an insane asylum run by the extremely unorthodox Dr. Leo Bain (Pleasence). There are no locked doors or barred windows except on the notorious third floor where the worst of the worst are kept. These include paranoid former POW Frank Hawkes (Palance), pyromaniac Byron "Preacher" Sutcliff (Landau), obese pedophile Ronald Elster (Erland van Lidth) and Tom "The Bleeder" Skaggs (Philip Clark), who gets severe nose bleeds whenever he commits an act of violence. The four men were beginning to make progress under the supervision of Dr. Merton but when Merton leaves the asylum, he's replaced by bright, eager young Dr. Potter (Dwight Schultz). The men think Potter has murdered Merton and set about to somehow take revenge upon him and his family.

Opportunity knocks in the form of a power outage/blackout (a remarkably well-lit blackout, I might add), which allows the four killers to escape and head towards Potters' house where they began to lay siege to the terrified occupants.

ALONE IN THE DARK recalls better "house-under-attack" horror films such as THE BIRDS (1963) and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968). Secondary characters (such as a police detective) are introduced and located within the house merely to serve as early victims in the killing spree. "The Bleeder", whose face we never see at the beginning of the film, turns up as a sympathetic young man who befriends the Potter family in jail (after they're arrested at a protest), a plot development seen from miles away. There's brief nudity, one special effects sequence by Tom Savini, and routine, predictable shocks and thrills. Ho hum.

Produced at the dawn age of the Golden Age of 1980s slasher films, ALONE IN THE DARK completely wastes the talents of Palance, Landau and Pleaseance although Palance has a nice little bit at the very end of the film when the maniac killer stumbles into a punk rock nightclub and fully embraces the nihilistic nirvana found within.

For die hard genre fans only.