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Alone in the Dark (1982)
Director: Jack Sholder
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
'I guess I just prefer psychopaths...' smiles bug-eyed Donald Pleasence, director of the fashionably liberal 'Haven' mental institute. We've already seen what the psychopaths think of him in a pre-credit nightmare: he hangs his victims by the ankles and splits their personalities with a meat-cleaver through the crotch. There's a sharp sense of humour at work in this school-of-Carpenter siege movie, even if, for all its ironic observations on madness in American society, it never cuts free of genre routine. A citywide blackout lets out the 370lb child molester, crazed preacher, military hardnut and faceless 'nosebleed killer,' to put the wimpish assistant director and his family through the suspense grinder; but with the strength of the cast (Landau, Palance) on the outside, the siege machine seems to have slipped a gear.Author: RP
Cast & crew
Director: Jack Sholder
Producer: Robert Shaye
Cast: Jack Palance, Donald Pleasence, Martin Landau, Dwight Schultz, Erland Van Lidth, Deborah Hedwall full cast
Genre(s): Horror
Duration: 93 mins
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