Jack Sholder constructed this ambitious addition to the slasher genre with such a wonderfully demented sense of humor by combining off-beat dialog with the standard body count formula. Donald Pleasence runs a liberal home for the insane where the patients are "free" to walk about with very little restraint except for the walls and doors themselves. Dr. Dan Potter (Dwight Shultz) is a new doctor who's hired as a replacement for the last head-shrinker who moved to Philadelphia. The patients of the 3rd floor (Martin Landau in a hilarious performance as Boyd The Preacher, who set fire to churches, Jack Palance as a paranoid schizophrenic ex-colonel, and Erland van Lidth as an obese child molester), believe that Potter murdered his predecessor, and after a full-scale power-outage ensues, the wackos take advantage of their opportunity to escape and launch an assault on Potter's family.
The first half of this twisted tale is played out for laughs as we're introduced to the patients at the institute by Donald Pleasence (who's character is as crazy as they are). Landau, Palance and Lidth are great as the murderous band of nut cases, but then this becomes just another "trapped-in-the-house" slasher film that effortlessly lags, at least until the power comes back on, and then the film meets an unsatisfying and abrupt cut-off ending. Nonetheless, this is funny and entertaining for genre fans as well as Landau and Palance completists.
The first half of this twisted tale is played out for laughs as we're introduced to the patients at the institute by Donald Pleasence (who's character is as crazy as they are). Landau, Palance and Lidth are great as the murderous band of nut cases, but then this becomes just another "trapped-in-the-house" slasher film that effortlessly lags, at least until the power comes back on, and then the film meets an unsatisfying and abrupt cut-off ending. Nonetheless, this is funny and entertaining for genre fans as well as Landau and Palance completists.