I'm wondering, then, if as a dual inspiration for this 1978 script Dann took elements from not only "An enemy of the people" but also from a (now-minor cult status) movie which came out two years earlier entitled "Blue Sunshine".

In that flick (which in my college days at the University of Missouri was shown as a CBS evening movie a couple of times) a gentleman lost a friend who went on a murderous rampage and killed his family. (Back in the day they, praise God, didn't show "CSI" style gore...but sound effects and careful editing made it just as gruesome).

The surviving friend started investigating, and found that a pattern was emerging...people would start becoming sensitive to loud noises, their eyes would start bugging, their hair would fall competely out, and they'd finally become (as I think John Beal's RMT character described the Amphoran-enhanced people) "bloodthirsty killers". (As pictured above). Turns out there was a common thread...they'd all in their younger, stupider days dropped a form of LSD called "blue sunshine", which turned out to be the culprit.

If Dann used these two elements my hat's off to him for making a dandy RMT out of it.

(And I LOVED Beal's character's dream sequences, such as at the first new year's eve party...no one was killing anyone, but he so wonderfully and uneasily conveyed that something wasn't quite right, in his native Joplin, Missouri, folksy way.)