Critical: Alone in the Dark (1982)

Critical is a series of examinations about media in popular culture. It's an explicit look, which means those who don't want key plot points revealed to you should likely avoid continuing. Critical does not even know what the word spoilers MEANS.

Writing these things more than a week after you watched a movie, especially as forgettable a movie as Alone in the Dark, is troublesome, if only because I've already forgotten most of my complaints about this movie. The fact that it's a pretty average movie to start with doesn't help this review at all.

But I haven't forgotten everything bad about this movie, oh no.

On the plus side, this is not Alone in the Dark from 2005. This, of course, is a big plus.

Also, Jack Palance and Martin Landau are great in this. Both play violent psycopaths, one a paranoid war vet and the other a preacher who likes to set fires, who escape from a mental hospital when the power goes out and the electric locks keeping them in stop working. A generator is mentioned only in passing, and that the generator obviously must have failed for the inmates to escape. You'd think this is pretty poor planning, on pretty much every level, but this is what happens when the doctor treating them is just as loony as they are. (Donald Pleasance unfortunately doesn't save that character from being a complete ass. True, you can only do so much with the script you're given, but his Dr Leo is so clearly insane that by the time Leo meets his end, you are not only not surprised but downright happy.) The people outside the asylum are just as crazy, as a simple power outage (hence the title) leads to a riot, complete with looting and FLAMING GARBAGE CANS, in the space of an hour. I don't know about you, but when my house loses electricity, I usually wait half a day before setting garbage aflame.

Palance and Landau have a lot of fun with the roles they are playing, as they are both absolutely nuts and enjoying every minute of it. Scenery is chewed without abandon and they both bring a good bit of menace to the parts they play. They are accompanied by two other pyscotics, one an overweight pedophile and the other a serial killer who hides his face and gets nose bleeds whenever he kills someone, and neither one of those is particularly memorable. The Bleeder, as he is called, is meant to be a shcoking surprise in the climax of the film, but the big reveal of what he looks like is just completely unbelievable. Once the riot begins, a stranger ends up hooking up with the main characters at an anti-nuclear rally and is invited into their home when the other 3 psychos begin their assault. The stranger helps them defend their home and it is clearly supposed to be shocking when he dispatches one of the psychopaths and his nose begins to bleed. If this made any sense, it might be shocking, but what are the chances that The Bleeder would end up at the same rally as the main characters, and that he would be invited home with them, and that he would suddenly turn on his former allies in order to protect the family, and that once his identity is revealed he snaps and tries to kill them? Sorry, it just makes no sense.

The ending proves to be the worst flaw in the movie. Dues ex machine is a generous way to put it, as Palance is talked down from his killing spree by a tv news report. Then, he proceeds to go to a bar that plays lousy music (the band is The Sick F*cks, and this movie was made in the 80's, so three guesses what type of music they play), kills the bouncer, and hits on a girl. And that is it, the movie ends. What the heck, movie?

At 85 minutes or so, it's not an awful movie, and Palance and Landau do their best to make this worth watching. I'd call it a rental, if you have nothing better at all in your Netflix queue.