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tonight's feature: Alone in the Dark (1982) on Shudder
At first glance Alone in the Dark has the hallmarks of a classic: an epic cast (including heavy hitters Jack Palance, Donald Pleasence and Martin Landau), a punk rock band called The Sick Fucks singing a song called "Chop Chop Chop up your Mother", a premise about multiple psychopaths escaping a mental institution, etc etc. But that's just about where the high expectations end. It also features a wildly uneven script and some wholly unbelievable characters and scenarios, almost like it doesn't really want to be a slasher movie.
The four psychopaths, a former prisoner of war, a pyromaniac, a child molester and a serial killer all escape when the security system fails due to a power outage. They decide to kill their new psychiatrist, picking up weapons at the mall during the blackout. After a while they turn up, more or less, at the psychiatrist's house, kill a few people and torment the family for a while before getting picked off, one by one.
It's not a terrible movie, but there's a lot of psychobabble and grating weirdness that doesn't quite feel right. The psychopaths steal a van and end up feeling more like the Scooby Doo gang than a group of terrifying murderers. A bit of a letdown considering the cast. Sure was fun to see these actors being twisted though. 6 crossbow toting Jack Palances out of 10.
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