(1982. dir: Jack Sholder) An overlooked classic from the eighties, it's a slasher movie, a home invasion film, a lunatics-escaped-from-the-asylum story. It's got a satirical message to deliver about the violence of society, and, although it's a little heavy-handed, its wry sensibility and near-flawless cast sees it through.
A blackout frees the most dangerous lunatics (termed "voyagers" by sensimilla-smoking head-shrink Donald Pleasence, uncomfortable with the connotations of "psychopath", a man whose laissez-faire approach leads him to allow matches on request to a pyromaniac) from an asylum and they target the family of a new doctor, convinced that he has murdered his predecessor, whom they respected. Imagine the joy of an underplayed (!) menace by looney-in-chief Jack Palance, truly glorious, or the infectious glee of Martin Landau's butcher-knife-brandishing preacher roaring, "Vengeance is mine, saieth the Lord!" It's got all the tropes, the punished-by-death teenaged-babysitter sex, gruesome murders by crossbow, cleaver, and baseball bat, and a creepy, neon-lit dream sequence to open the festivities.
It doesn't shirk the blood, guts, rising tension, or jump-scares, enjoying itself thoroughly the entire way.
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