This psychological sideshow runs like a play but strangely never was, its source being a novel by writer-director William Peter Blatty. Stacy Keach plays the slow-speaking psychiatrist colonel - it's apparent there's something odd about him from the start - caring for a group of demented 'Nam veterans at a bizarre castle in northwest America. Blatty tries, in his usual fashion, to grab his audience's attention any way he can, with violence and nudity thrown in at the end, but can't disguise the surface bag of tricks as anything but a pageant run by an entrepreneur who plays for effect rather than depth, show rather than substance. All the same, this rates highly in the canon of cinema curiosities and at least tries to be stimulating and thought provoking at the same time. And there's a stupendous barroom fight scene. Keach (a long way from Mike Hammer) and Scott Wilson show sincerity, but the film's best performance comes from the ever-reliable Ed Flanders.

©ipc tx. Film content from TVTimes