Sam Panico The film opens with a dream sequence where Byron "Preacher" Sutcliff (Martin Landau, forever Bela Lugosi and John Koenig to me) finds himself in a diner where he is chopped in half by a demented short order cook (Donald Pleasence!).That cook turns out to be Dr. Leo Bane, who runs a psychiatric hospital that is able to reach the unreachable. Sure, his methods are practically surreal and he randomly smokes weed during the day. But they work.Dr. Dan Potter (Dwight Schultz, Murdock from TV's The A-Team) is the new doctor in town, the replacement for Dr. Harry Merton who has moved to another hospital in Philadelphia. He's brought his wife Nell and daughter Lyla (Elizabeth Ward, who played the original Carol Seaver in the pilot for TV's Growing Pains before Tracey Gold won the role) to town and is preparing for a visit from his punk rock, post-nervous breakdown having sister Toni.The really dangerous people in Dr. Leo's care are all on the third floor. We already met the preacher, who loves setting things on fire. Then there's the paranoid prisoner of war Frank Hawkes (the transcendent Jack Palance), child molester Ronald Elster (Erland van Lidth, Dynamo from The Running Man who was also in Stir Crazy) and John "The Bleeder" Skagg (Phillip Clarke, The Reincarnation of Peter Proud ), a killing machine who bleeds from the nose when he kills. No one has seen The Bleeder's face, as he hides it from everyone but his close friends.Dan learns from security guard Ray Curtis (Brent Jennings, Witness) that the third-floor men all believe that he killed Dr. Merton and want revenge. He blows this off.A night at the punk rock club -- a place that Dan hates -- ends after the power goes out, as a nuclear power plant has caused a regional blackout. Lyla is at home with Bunky, her babysitter. And the men from the third floor kill their way out of Dr. Leo's hospital, with all three but The Bleeder staying together.Preacher makes the first move, trying to deliver a telegram to the Potter house. Then, Nell and Toni go to protest the nuclear power plant but are arrested, forcing them to bring in Bunky to babysit. However, Ronald gets there first and teaches Lyle origami. As for Bunky, well, she calls over her boyfriend Billy for some sex, but Preacher and Ronald kill them in a scene that has a disconcerting bit with a knife emerging from the bed.When Dan bails out Nell and Toni, they bring along Tom Smith, a man they met in jail. The police are all over the house, investigating the murders of Bucky and Billy. Luckily, Lyle was in bed sleeping the whole time after playing with Ronald.What follows is a night of murder and mayhem, with cops getting killed by crossbow bolts, Dr. Leo trying to reach out and hug the Preacher (he had previously told him that if he didn't settle down he would cut him in half, leading to the nightmare we saw at the start of the film) before getting killed with an axe, a fire in the basement, the reveal of The Bleeder and so much more."It's not just us crazy ones who kill," says Dan at one point. The end of the film and the closing scene are harrowing. I'm not giving it away. You need to hunt this down for yourself.Alone in the Dark was written off as just another slasher in the early 1980's. It's basically disappeared as there hasn't been a major re-release by a label like Shout! Factory or Arrow Video. That's a shame -- it's an intelligent film that is as comfortable discussing the existential philosophy of R.D. Laing as it is with showing people get skewered.

cricket crockett . . . health care system up to the level where it is today. Before the wide release of ALONE IN THE DARK, U.S. taxpayers were footing the bill for hundreds of spacious "state hospitals" within which millions of "voyagers" enjoyed basking amid their own private I-Don't-Knows. However, as the ill-fated orderly "Ray Curtis" observes during ALONE IN THE DARK, the American General Population always was just a power blackout away from these facilities' electric barriers failing, allowing the voyaging hordes to run rampant throughout the darkness conducting looting, raping, and killing sprees. Thanks to the detailed depiction of just such a calamity during ALONE IN THE DARK, America was forced to come to Her senses. Within months of this film's release, convoys of bull-dozers razed or plowed under most if not all of the never lucrative white elephant state asylums. Corporate taxes no longer go toward supporting such money losers. Righteous families blessed with the corresponding means still have a wide range of private sector mental health care options in the rare instances when such needs arise. Those frowned upon by Fortune, however, are now mostly "free-range" out-patients. If they lack the job skills to earn their meds, Today's well-armed militia of private citizens are doing a fine job of keeping them in check, thanks largely to the timely warning of ALONE IN THE DARK.

GL84 Working at an insane asylum, a doctor working to keep his extra- security patients under control finds his efforts thwarted when a massive blackout occurs and they escape into the city, forcing him to realize what they're after and stop them before they can carry it out.This was actually a rather entertaining slasher. One of the best aspects is its intelligence and original story that starts off in a cliché since the fact that the convicts get out isn't anything new, but rather is one take on two different routes than most would expect. This gets a lot of work out of the fact that the convicts escape early on rather than stalking the residents inside with the fear of them getting out so that this one spends the majority of time stalking an individual family instead of going to a specific location and killing off an assembled mass there. This makes the fact that their out and about a lot scarier than what would've been done the other way around. What really sells the movie, though, is the continuous high-quality suspense scenes throughout here which come off rather nice as several of the scenes are highly enjoyable prolonging that factor. The stalking in the van is pretty chilling, the bedroom sequence is an absolute standout knowing they're there and trying to get out while a later assault on a house from unseen sources in the woods nearby features enough good moments to become quite entertaining and effective while detailing the action and brawling for some suspenseful times. The early action from the looting helps this one out nicely as well, bringing along some rather interesting bits as there's a different element present to the action that works nicely, and even manages to set-up the action in the later half rather well. Along with some nice gore based on the respectable body count, there here are the film's good points as there wasn't all that much really wrong with this one. Among the film's biggest ones is that the film has a long set-up to get to the good points. There's way too much time to get to the blackout that sets about the main thrust of the film and puts it into motion, and that there's a really long time to get there is a little off to really make this one exciting. Another small flaw is the ending comes across as slightly confusing and a little out-of-place in the film as it just seems to go on with endless confrontations just to get some action in, especially as it seemed to head for one conclusion and comes out with one that doesn't connect at all. These here are the film's main problems that hold it back.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language, Brief Nudity and a mild sex scene.

Brian T. Whitlock (GOWBTW) The 1980's was on the rise of slashers. Before Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees, there's "Alone in the Dark" . In an asylum, there are 4 mental patients who are convinced that the doctor(Dwight Schultz, before playing "Howling Mad" Murdock on the A-Team) has killed the original one. So they devise a scheme to escape, and take him out. The guard there overhears it and warned the new doctor. He takes it lightly. The killer quad escapes killing anyone who got in their way. During the route of escape, the doctor and his sister go to a concert where a very crude punk band were playing, a power failure occurred, and the doctor was glad to be relieved of such manner he couldn't take much longer. During the outage, the murderous quad find their way to a sporting store for some weapons. And they trade the doctor's car for a van when they killed the owner. Then comes my favorite scene between the bicycle messenger and the maniacs. They took him out, and get his hat and uniform. Then comes the plan. After the police warn the neighborhood about the 4, everyone is on guard. It's very interesting to see, and the surprise is there in this film. This is perfect for horror fans. Great cast, great plot. I recommend this film straight out! 3 out of 5 stars.