Following the suspicious death of its prior director, distinguished psychiatrist Dr. Richard Thorndyke (Mel Brooks) takes up his mantle at the Institute for the Very, Very, Nervous and quickly notices that things there are a little off. Soon he finds himself way in over his head, having been chased by hordes of birds, attacked in the shower, and wrongly implicated for murder. Brooks' High Anxiety is a silly spoof and homage to Alfred Hitchcock, which the Master of Suspense was reputed to have enjoyed. Many of the gags fall flat (a shower scene where Brooks is stabbed with a rolled-up newspaper is a particular dud) with the only really funny bits coming from Cloris Leachman, Harvey Korman, and Madeline Kahn who are essentially reprising their roles in previous Brooks' films.
