[Inspector Abberline]

What seems on the surface like your every day run of the mill slasher film, starts out more like a horror version of One flew over the cuckoos nest. Donald Pleasance is Dr. Leo Bain, a new age style psychiatrist, who tries to cure his patients with some far out hippy style doctoring. This is the total opposite to his portrayal of Dr Loomis in the Halloween franchise, here he sits around smoking dope and talking basically new age bollocks..but seeing as its Pleasance he does it very well indeed..Dwight Schultz as Dr. Dan Potter ,was probably more famous at the time for playing Howling Mad Murdock in the A-Team..so here its abit of role reversal as he is the new doctor at the hospital. Leading the cast of villains is Jack Palance as Frank Hawkes and Martin Landau as Byron 'Preacher' Sutcliff, considering there resurgence in popularity towards the end of there careers, I imagine this was done more for the pay check than the art but you never know. Backing these two up is Erland van Lidth as Ronald 'Fatty' Elster, although he was more famous for his part in Stir Crazy and The Wanderers as a child killer and Phillip Clark asTom Smith / Skaggs a man who has to kill whenever he gets a nose bleed, or was it that he gets a nose bleed whenever he kills. Well like any good asylum in a horror movie, all hell breaks loose when there's a power cut, and deadly foursome escape and go after there new psychiatrist Dan Potter (Schultz)..there begins the traditional slasher territory mixed with some home invasion and some Straw Dogs family man fighting back. Anybody holding a grudge because Jack Sholder directed A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985) , you should forgive him his sins as this movie more than makes up for it, plus he went onto direct the brilliant sci-fi actioner The Hidden (1987) so he redeemed himself there also..I've loved Alone In The Dark ever since I saw this on video tape back in the day, and it still holds up today after countless viewings...