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| Release: 1989, Rating: R, Run time: 83 min. |
What happens when you get The Evil Dead gang together to make an 80s slasher film? Well, not the spectacular experience you’re thinking, that’s for sure, but their effort did give us a fun, gory romp, with a neat, albeit cheesy as hell ending. So, let’s intrude on this review together, to find out what it’s all about and whether you should check it out…
Short nitty-gritty plot description from IMDb is as follows: The overnight stock crew of a local supermarket find themselves being stalked and slashed by a mysterious maniac.
First things first, this movie is advertised as starring Bruce Campbell, but that’s a blatant lie, as the king himself, doesn’t show up until near the end and it’s only for a few minutes. It’s basically a cameo appearance. It sucks, I know! They definitely false advertised this one. Anyway, with that out of the way, what about the rest of this slasher flick?
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| The lonely night crew is making sure their intruder stays outside. |
Intruder follows a group of employees working at a grocery store. Near closing, an ex-boyfriend of one of the girls shows up and starts to cause trouble with the staff. After kicking him out, a mysterious figure breaks in the store and starts systematically murdering the staff, often times in glorious, bloody fashion. Is the killer the ex-boyfriend, or perhaps one of the employees? I’ll never tell! Muhahahaha.
Intruder stars all kinds of people known to the fans of The Evil Dead movies. You have Sam Raimi, playing Randy, the meat boy. Ted Raimi, playing the produce guy. Director Scott Spiegel wrote this movie, along with Evil Dead II and finally the gory effects are done by the KNB guys, Robert Kurtzman, Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger. This movie definitely has it’s feet steeped in glorious 80s horror. However, it’s not all blood and lollypops.
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| Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead) as the meat boy. |
The movie has a hard time finding it’s footing and figuring how exactly what kind of a genre it wants to stay in. It bounces back and forth from comedy bits and horror. I’m not saying a movie can’t be good when doing that, but in the Intruder’s case, there are times where it takes me right out of the film. Also, the acting is a pretty darn awful from a lot of the people, which yes, it’s an 80s movie, so it’s to be expected, but dear god, I sometimes wonder how this people got any work.
So, Intruder does have a few negatives, but for me, the positives definitely outweigh them all. The movie is gory, keeps the killers identity a secret until the obscene and completely bizarre, yet oddly amusing ending. It may have fallen quietly in with all the other slashers of it’s time, but in my opinion, this is one late night shopping experience you oughta not miss.
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