Alone in the Dark

Alone in the Dark (1982) is a siege horror you can watch online on iFILM, the feature debut of director Jack Sholder. When a citywide blackout kills the power, four of the most dangerous patients walk straight out of a locked psychiatric ward.

The escapees have convinced themselves that the new physician, Dr. Potter, murdered the old doctor they loved — and that he has to answer for it. After dark they close in on his house and trap the family inside. Dwight Schultz plays Potter, but the real menace comes from a row of old-Hollywood heavyweights: Jack Palance, Donald Pleasence as the eccentric head of the asylum, and Martin Landau. Outside there's a knife and the dark; inside, bolted doors and not a single working light.

Sholder would go on to direct A Nightmare on Elm Street 2, and you can already feel his instinct for dread built on silence and cut power rather than gore for its own sake. It's lean, contained and played dead straight, with none of the wink modern horror leans on. Stream Alone in the Dark (1982) online on iFILM.