Four dangerous psychopaths (two played by Jack Palance and Martin Landau) easily escape from an asylum run by a VERY liberal doctor (Donald Pleasance) during a blackout. They proceed to terrorize a doctor (Dwight Schultz),his wife, their little daughter, the doctor's sister (who is on the verge of a nervous breakdown) and a stranger. And the electricity is out, the phone lines are cut and the house is completely isolated...

I saw this in a theatre in 1982 and it scared me silly. It had me jumping and two sequences (one involving a baby sitter on a bed and the other with blood dripping on a woman's face) had me cringing. Seeing it over 20 years later, it's not as scary but still is an above average horror film.

The film moves quickly, there are nice directorial touches from Jack Sholder (who went on to direct "Nightmare on Elm Street 2") and it has an above average cast--Pleasance seems a little embarrassed but Palance is good and Landau is clearly enjoying himself. There are quite a few scary moments, a good spooky score and the final half hour is an all out assault on the family. Also it's pretty restrained in terms of gore.

But there are huge gaps in logic which I didn't notice the first time and I really did not need a sequence where it is insinuated that a little girl has been molested. Also the young girl of the family is the most annoying little brat I've ever seen--I was desperately hoping she'd get knocked senseless just to shut her up. And it really has no ending.

Still, if you ignore the plot holes this film really can work on you. Best seen at night, in a dark room...and all alone:)

When the story begins, Dr. Dan Potter (Dwight Schultz) arrives at a psychiatric hospital to begin his new job. The place is run by Dr. Bain (Donald Pleasance) and he seems, at times, to be as weird as the inmates. His relationship with the patients sure reminded me of the Poe story "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" and the movie based on it, "Stonehurst Asylum". But the story goes a different direction. There is a huge power outage and the security system at the hospital goes out...and the inmates find the alarms and doors no longer function properly. Soon a group of dangerous psychotics leave to go on a killing spree...all the while Dr. Bain seems amazingly chill. What's next??

This is a slasher film at heart, but it has more depth and more story to it than a Friday 13 or Halloween-type movie. It also helps that there was an impressive cast--with Jack Palance and Martin Landau playing two of the super-dangerous psychotic escapees. Now this does NOT mean the film is especially brilliant, as like other films in the genre, it has some cliches--such as the identity of the fourth slasher as well as how the psychotics all attack one at a time instead of at once (thus making them easier to beat).

By the way, although Dwight Schultz is not a household name, Star Trek fans will likely recognize him as the extremely nervous and geeky Lt. Broccoli.

After hearing many things about Alone in the Dark, good and bad, I saw it as someone who has a lot of admiration for most of the cast and liked a lot of things they've done. And it was an hour and a half well worth spent, it is not flawless of course but it was most effective, a lot of fun and handles the horror and suspense elements surprisingly well.

The film does get off to a rather pedestrian start, aside from a wonderfully weird opening dream sequence, with a lot of talk and not a lot happening(or at least not a lot particularly interesting). It ends a touch too conveniently outside of the reveal and the bizarre gem that is the nightclub encounter, Lyla for my tastes is an annoying character nonchalantly played by Elizabeth Ward and while they all did a fine job the big names could have done with a little more screen time, Jack Palance especially is underused.

However, once the psychopaths escape Alone in the Dark really gets going and boasts some great offbeat dialogue, Donald Pleasance's speech in his last scene is deliciously nuts and Palance has two of the film's most memorable lines(one being "There are no crazy people, doctor, we're all just on vacation" and "So... it's not just us crazy folk that kill. We all kill... when we must") and some genuinely scary, stylishly shot and well-timed shocks, the knife through the mattress, the heart-in-your-mouth moment with the fleeting apparition and the clever reveal with The Bleeder(did not see that coming at all) being the standouts.

Alone in the Dark is well-made with tight editing and photography that's stylish and moody, I for one didn't find it dated at all, and efficiently directed(hard to believe this was just a debut, Jack Sholder mentioned that it was his personal favourite of his films and it shows here, personally do agree with him). The music score is very spooky and quite refreshing for a horror and apart from Ward the cast are uniformly good. Dwight Schultz's role is very atypical and he does a good job playing it straight, even if a couple of Dr. Potter's decisions are a little dumb, and Donald Pleasance is great fun as Bain. Erland van Lidt intimidates from his appearance alone and Jack Palance is both very funny and menacing, but especially good is Martin Landau, who has seldom been creepier and he looked as though he was having a lot of fun with his role.

Overall, very effective and well done film and one of the 80s' most under-appreciated films. 8/10 Bethany Cox