Alone in the Dark (1982)

****

Before Jack Sholder directed the provocative sequel / remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, New Line financed his “Alone in the Dark” (1982), written and directed by him. It has some seriously tight names in the cast (Jack Palance, Martin Landau, Donald Pleasence, and Dwight Schultz) and a warped sense of humor. I believe the first time this film ever came to light for me was when it appeared in Terror in the Aisles, a horror movie clip doc with hosts Donald Pleasence and Nancy Allen, sitting in theaters and commenting on scenes from a line-up of studio films in spooky tones that many felt were campy instead of spine-tingling. That said, Terror in the Aisles was a fabulous way to introduce those curious with the horror genre for the first time a series of clips that might entice an interest. Its release date was 1984, and it was about 1986 or so when I watched it. Been awhile. I should revisit that.

But speaking of Alone in the Dark, I love it. But I love Palance—serious fanboy here—and Landau is so much fan as this hyperactive, batshit crazy “ex-minister” with a serious problem of pyro-mania (Palance’s traumatized POW, Colonel Frank Hawkes says of Landau’s Preacher Byron: “Preacher likes to set fire to churches, that's his trip. Unfortunately he does it when there are people inside.”) that their appearances alone (which aren’t as substantial as one might be led to believe) make searching out Alone in the Dark a priority. There are elements of the slasher and siege film in Alone in the Dark. I don’t consider it an outright slasher film, although it does mine the “escaped lunatic from a mental institution on the loose” formula, an old mainstay that the genre has loved to go to over and over. A few victims are unfortunately in the path of these four escaped “voyagers” (as Pleasence’s wacky doc, Leo Baine, describes them instead of patients) who consider a newly hired psychiatrist (Schultz’s Dan Potter) responsible for the loss of their former “third floor doctor” (Frank considers Potter having killed him, convincing the others on his floor also!).

Phallic, much?

Happy...Trails.

“I don’t know what’s normal anymore”

Baine wanted to make the stay of all his patients comfortable and “normal” for them as possible, including the “more dangerous ones”, held in a maximum security third floor, electrically closed from “the psychotic outside” except for some excursions on the grounds under supervision. During a blackout perhaps caused by a nuclear plant malfunction, the electrically controlled third floor allows the four psychopaths (along with Palance and Landau is a strangler called “the bleeder”, since his nose bleeds after murdering folks, and a 400 pound pedo-child murderer named Ron Elster (Erland van Lidth, especially unsettling)) to flee, but not before leaving poor Brent Jennings nearly snapped in half…van Lidth was, it seems, was a power lifter and could hoist folks with ease (doing so with another victim lateron), cracking Jennings across his knee. A doctor arrives at the hospital at the worst possible time, as a punch through his driver’s side window cold cocks him, with Elster yanking him from the car, tossing him out of the way. So onward the four psychos go…to Potter’s house.

The siege film makes up the majority of the second half of Alone in the Dark. Dan, his wife (Deborah Hedwall), little sarcastic daughter (Elizabeth Ward), and mental breakdown recovering sister (Lee Taylor-Allan) are in a predicament: they must hole up in the Potters’ home while the lunatics surround them, killing a police officer assigned as security. Hedwall and Taylor-Allan meet kind Tom Smith (Phillip Clark) and bring him home. Smith, for a good bit, is sure-footed, calm, heroic, thoughtful, polite, and protective of the Potter family, assisting Dan in shoring up the house, helping to guard them, and even kill when necessary. Then this frozen darkness comes over him, his head hangs, and this ever worsening face begins to erode the normal cadence and kind disposition with a madness replacing what is lost. His normalcy seems to slip once he helps to kill obese pedo and eventually the blood sprinkles Taylor-Allan who is hugging him close. Frank and his crossbow do get action, but you never see Palance actually kill anyone on screen. I think he wanted it that way. Landau only has to flash that demented grin and offer his wicked eye twinkle and sells you a bill of goods worth accepting.

Pleasence was attune to providing us plenty of oddballs through his prolific career. This film was no different. Smoking a "special herb", Pleasence looks over at Schultz and says about crazy: Mind moving fast is crazy. Mind slow is sane. Mind stopped...is God. He drives out to Dan's place and despite their pleas for him to go get help he sees this as a chance to talk the patients into returning with him. Epic fail. My favorite scene of Pleasence was him replying to a patient about her intestine and porcelain through the use of waving hands.

This follows a path I think slashers do well with: even the most seemingly normal among us can kill if provoked and survival is at stake. Dan Potter sees a crisis and encourages violent action in order to upend the crazies intruding their home, threatening his family. Cool development I thought added something fascinating to the mix: Dan's sister is starting to unravel as the house is less and less safe. She sees a monster, fears upstairs, and needs her meds in order to maintain. So a lot of intensifying and ensuing chaos Dan must contend with as Tim helps...until he becomes yet another problem for Dan to deal with.

Sholder even included the punk band, The Sick Fucks, looted stores, the bleeder in a hockey mask, and Palance pulling out all the stops when his patient tries as he might to speak without losing his cool which is a demanding, taxing experience (his sentences are spoken with three breaths each). Palance beating the shit out of a club money taker and approached by a spaced out attendee at the end couldn't finish the film any better as far as I'm concerned. Carol Levy has a memorable minor appearance here as a sexy babysitter interrupted by the psychos before coitus with her boyfriend, strangled off her feet by obese pedo, and Lin Shaye amuses as a patient in Pleasence's hospital, working the desk and believing her doc is invisible!