King of Hearts of Darkness

Although I'd heard a lot about how terrible Peter Blatty's The Ninth Configuration (1980) is, one or two good mentions and I put it on the queue. Maybe I'm just not ready to watch The Exorcist.

It is set in a castle in Oregon (shot in Hungary, because PepsiCo was funding, and had some money there they couldn't get out). This castle was being used as an asylum for soldiers driven mad by the Vietnam War. The opening scenes show Sergeant Tom Atkins trying to get the motley crew of crazily dressed soldiers to line up at attention. Arriving is Stacey Keach, the new commanding officer and chief psychiatrist of this madhouse. He seems withdrawn and melancholy, but is willing to humor the men.

And what a wacky assortment: Moses Gunn thinks he's Superman. Joe Spinell is staging Shakespeare with dogs. Scott Wilson was an astronaut who had a screaming panic attack just before his launch. And the psychiatrist, Ed Flanders, is just about as bad, walking around with no pants because the patients took his only clean pair. 

So the first half is about the kooky goings-on in Castle Nutbar. But Keach is slowly coming out of his shell. He talks a little about his brother, a vicious killer, "Killer" Kane, now dead. Then a new soldier is admitted and recognized Keach as "Killer" Kane. Flanders ("Hi-diddly-ho!") explains that Kane is the killer, who decapitated enemy soldiers in Vietnam. He had a breakdown and believes he is his brother, who is a psychiatrist - wanting to heal people, not kill them, And yes, Flanders is actually Keach's brother, which almost explains why they are letting him get away with all this.

Then it gets dark. But not the way I expected. You see, this being Peter Blatty, I assumed that the occult would make an appearance. Probably involving ancient evil beings living on the moon that the astronaut was so afraid of. But - SPOILER - no. The evil is all in the hearts of men.

When I was in high school, our psych class went to see King of Hearts, about an Allied soldier who comes upon an Italian town that the fascists have retreated from. But first they let out the inmates of the local sanitarium. You see, war is madness, and in war, madmen are the only sane ones, etc. I might have bought this as a high-school kid, but not anymore. Insanity, and in particular, "battle fatigue" doesn't work that way. Of course, they might have been malingering. The castle was a pretty good deal.

Anyway. I mainly wanted to see it for Tom Atkins ("Thrill me!"). And he was barely in it.