Jack Sholder's Alone in the Dark is without question one of my favorite slasher movies... and one I discovered later on in my horror journey after movies like The Prowler, The Burning, My Bloody Valentine, and Slumber Party Massacre racked my brain. Due to this being out of print/lack of a fresh new release, I kinda feel like it’s often overlooked status-wise as far as standouts from the “golden age” of slasher jams and that’s a damn shame if you ask me... this thing has a lot going for it!

From the bonkers intro, insane cast, multiple villains running amok, an under siege family trapped in a house, mental asylum breakout, town anarchy, the unexpected twist, and the look on Jack Palance's face in…

A stacked cast having a lot of fun in middle of nowhere New York makes what would be a solid slasher basically great. Everything great about it leads to everything else great about it, a beautiful chain reaction of clever, striking, or tense moments and characteristics.

The Sic F*cks bring their own brand of horror punk theatre to the midst of this, offering a strange validation to Dr. Bain's crackpot theories up until the spectacular ending, which cuts through even their chaos in order to emphasize the dangers of not taking seriously mental illness. Certainly, this isn't sensitive or right-thinking when it comes to mental illness; this is not a nuanced portrayal. But the target isn't the patients; it's the…

I had seen this before and knew I liked it but really couldn’t remember any of it. Now that I have revisited it, I totally remember why. It’s a really well done movie. It gets put in the slasher category but really, I think this is more of a home invasion movie with slasher elements. As a slasher, it’s just ok but as home invasion horror, it’s pretty awesome.

A region wide blackout allows a group of asylum inmates to escape and terrorize one of their doctors and his family. The setup is good but, in itself, is nothing particularly special. What makes it stand out so much, though, is the fact that two of the escapees are Martin Landau…

Geoff T's Hoop-Tober 6.0 Challenge
Alone in the Dark (1982)

Here's a fairly interesting one, a slasher produced by New Line Cinema before they struck gold with Nightmare on Elm Street, back when they just a small B-movie outlet.

Set in a small New Jersey town, an insane asylum is home to a notable group of patients, which includes preacher Byron, POV veteran Frank, obese sex offender Ronald, and some other guy named John, or whatever. Killing anyone who gets in their way, the four proceed to target psychiatrist Dr. Dan Potter and his family, whom they're convinced is responsible for the death of their last psychiatrist, who is actually alive and well in nearby Philadelphia.

In honestly, this film…

This early 80s slasher distinguishes itself mainly through its casting (some big hitters in Donald Pleasence, Jack Palance and Martin Landau) and director Jack Sholder's ambition to do things differently to your run-of-the-mill blood-letting. What starts out as something like social satire ratchets up to full-bore home invasion territory.

At Dr. Leo Bains's rehab centre for the criminally insane, four patients (or 'voyagers', to use Bains's pointedly pretentious terminology) led by former soldier and POW, Frank Hawkes, deduce that replacement doctor Dan Potter must have murdered his predecessor and resolve to kill him and his family in turn. Hawkes's motley crew numbers a corpulent child molester, a gurning ex-reverend (Landau in fire and brimstone mode) and a guy who doesn't…

Murdock IS the wild card.

When Edith Wharton suggested Alone in the Dark for the Collab - I was all "that's a really great film.......... but I've seen it a hundred times and its kind of slow," because I have it perpetual confused with Wait Until Dark (1967). All star ensemble of rogues terrorize a single location - it's a fair mistake. Which isn't to say that Alone in the Dark (1982) is unknown to me. Right after Landau picked up the Academy Award (1994), I was reading up on his body of work, and at the time this was pretty high on my watch list. Back then availability was a factor. So it was a nice surprise to finally…

Mostly smart, often fun, early shot in the Slasher Film Wars of the 1980’s from the director of the The Hidden, featuring an incredibly stacked cast and a tendency to spend quality time on character building over horror antics.

In a world apparently spilling over with homicidal maniacs, a psychiatrist, Dr. Dan Potter, and his family move to a new town so he can start a job working for Dr. Samuel Loomis’ far-out, more mellow twin brother (not really, it’s just Donald Pleasence playing a stoner psychiatrist). Pleasence's character is apparently a specialist in hyper-decatastrophizing, too much so, actually.

(But then protagonist Dan might be a little too dismissive as well, at one point he shrugs off the fact that…

Maybe a life lesson of sorts, you know, even Dr. Leo’s hippy mumbo jumbo cannot save you once the lights go out. Turn on, tune in, drop out, the lights go out. 

This is a great jam, both literally and figuratively, with a very clear following for obvious reasons. The score is fantastic eighties slasher moods and then a punk band thrown in for good measure, hell yeah. The thing is, I really adored this movie, the way it cross pollinated the themes of mental illness and alternative medicine. Tossing in a little New York blackout. Anarchy, murder, psycho killers, it’s the end of the seventies balled up into one fun slasher premise. The opening sequence was magic, just the…

A vastly underrated masterpiece imho courtesy of the decade that keeps on giving...the 80s baby!

Four patients at a psychiatric facility escape during a town blackout with plans to kill their new doctor. Simply because they think he killed their old doctor. Which isn't the case at all but goodluck explaining that too four psychopaths. They begin to terrorize the doctor and his family relentlessly. But the doc and his family aren't going down without a fight! Leading to a very intense back in forth fight for survival between the family and the psychos.

The top notch cast is rather unusual for an 80s horror movie. Everyone does well. Jack Palance and Martin Landau lead the escaped quartet of the…

Over the years, I’ve amassed a somewhat respectable collection of films. My family and friends have often asked, why, in this world of instant streaming, do I feel so compelled to acquire physical media. It’s a question I struggle with myself at times. Maybe it’s habit, something wired into me as a boy with baseball cards and comic books. Or maybe it’s the result of reading some article highlighting the fine print of what it actually means to “own” a conditionally-licensed digital film. Maybe I’m afraid society will collapse and fall into chaos and I feel it is my duty to curate and maintain a record of our culture and art. A record of our people. Of our civilization.

Maybe.

But I…

I've been dying to watch Alone in the Dark for about a decade. I have no idea why I couldn't find it, seeing as almost everyone I know has watched it before. The poster art has become a lighthouse on the shore of a sea of movies, an angina to me that has kept me lusting after something that I could have over built up in my expectations. With this VHS rip kick I'm on, what a great movie for me to end my day on.

Okay, hold up. Donald fucking Pleasence and Martin Landau are in this. So I didn't do my research on AitD apparently, even Lin Shaye shows up, like what a stacked cast! Seriously though, whenever…