Alone in the Dark (1982)

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SLASHER SUNDAY
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For Sundays throughout the month of October, I wanted to take a look at some of the overlooked and seemingly unseen slasher movies of the past. One could consider this my answer to my "Under the Radar" page this month... although, that will probably apply to quite a few titles I have on this month's list. Anyway, getting on with things, first up, we have 1982's 'Alone in the Dark'. Please note that in no way, shape or form is this associated with the video game released many years later, OR the God-Awful 2005 movie adaptation of that game. No, no. This is much more along the lines of exactly what I wanted to see from the films on this page. In short, I felt like this was a pleasant surprise to say the least.

The story involves a psychiatrist named Dan Potter (Dwight Schultz), who is appointed to an experimental new psychiatric hospital in New Jersey known as "The Haven". Bringing his wife Nell (Deborah Hedwall) and daughter, Lyla (Elizabeth Ward) with him, he is called in to work with Dr. Leo Bain (Donald Pleasence); a man whose security measures tend to be lenient, save for the third-floor patients, who are separated by an electrified door; former POW, Frank Hawkes (Jack Palance); pyromaniac evangelist, Byron "Preacher" Sutcliff (Martin Landau); pedophile, Ronald "Fatty" Elster (Erland van Lidth); and serial killer, John "The Bleeder" Skagg (Phillip Clark), who has a tendency to hide his face from everyone.

Potter was sent in to replace Dr. Merton, who has since taken a new position out of town. As a result of their general separation from everything going on, the four "big timers" here soon conclude that Dan must have murdered his predecessor, who was generally good to all four of them. Therefore, they plan to make an escape and do away with not only Dan, but perhaps his family as well. With this, the film, while still having a slasher element to it, is actually much more of a home invasion film. Eventually the four criminals do manage to find Dan's address and do come after the family, which further includes the recent victim of a terrible nervous breakdown, Dan's sister, Toni (Lee Taylor-Allan), who will now be forced to face what she doesn't think she can.

The film is entitled so, because pretty much 80% of it takes place during a blackout, which is a good way of not only adding atmosphere, but explain why a lot of more basic and primitive tactics need to be used through the film. But of course, what would a slasher film be without that? What really got me here were the performances by the four psychopaths, but namely (and with no surprise) Jack Palance and Martin Landau who both come across as very threatening and intimidating but in very different ways. The former is more cool-headed but you know he has no problems with killing, and the latter just plain does "crazy" really well. If you decide to check it out, you've gotta let it flow for a little bit until anything really happens. But once things pick up, the whole finale gets quite intense, and the movie does what it sets out to do, somewhat ahead of its time for 1982.

I think perhaps what I found most interesting about this was the fact that it was directed by Jack Sholder - the same guy who gave us 'Elm Street 2', which I probably consider the worst, but also perhaps the most fascinating of the series. I recommend checking out 'Scream Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street' for reference. It was nice to note here that despite what he did to my favourite horror franchise in only its second movie, this does show that he can still do horror and suspense well. Much like with Joel Schumaker and his version of 'Batman', one still shouldn't write him off as a "franchise killer" or something, as he's still got some good stuff to his name. This is another one that's surprisingly easy to find (again, YouTube), but unlike my recent review on 'Sleepless Unrest', this is one I can recommend as a pioneering film for any fan of the slasher/home invasion genre. Perhaps not a masterpiece, it was something altogether enjoyable for what it was.

4/5

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