Hard to believe that it was nearly 20 years ago that Jonathon Ross graced our screens with a Friday night show on horror and cult movies called The Incredibly Strange Film Show. In one particular episode they focused on pre-Spiderman director Sam Raimi; and in particular his Evil Dead series of movies. As the show wrapped they promoted an upcoming movie Intruder: The Final Checkout, the show touted this as one of the most bold movies of the genre and that it would be a box office hit. Well, predictions are not always true. Intruder transpires to be a yawn a minute horror tale in which a group of late night supermarket workers are stalked by an unknown assailant.
The problem with Intruder is that its just nothing new, it steals ideas from The Friday The 13th movies, uses named cast in order to add a touch of class to a very low budget and pointless film. There is a bit of humour, which really is not funny at all, but seems to think it is.
The build up to it all kicking off is just awful, there is no bonding with characters or their tedious acting. The storylines are tied together with the tiniest pieces of string. Then when all hell does break loose its on the whole rather pointless, and worse still they try to keep the killers identity secret, but at the same time developing a pathetic plot that makes it obvious exactly who the killer is.
The sets and fashions look dated and I suspect that's down to the fact that it appears this awful movie was two years in the making. I first saw the movie promoted with quite a large trailer in 1987, however the movies year of release was 1989, and very late in 1989 to boot.
The movie was directed by Scott Spiegal, someone who seems to have very close ties with Sam Raimi, as he is cast in small roles in all the Spiderman movies as well as the Evil Dead films. Spiegal has since gone on to make From Dusk Till Dawn 2, and filming Hostel 2 as I write this. It seems that while Raimi handed out roles to his friend, he felt the need to do the same and casts Raimi as the store butcher, who's time on screen is brief and who's death is briefer. Ironically for his limited time on screen he is one of the main billed cast as is other Evil Dead actor Bruce Campbell. Campbell's time on screen is even briefer 17 seconds in fact for forth billing on the movies promotional material. For added attention they picked up one of the popular Sheen family, however it was the one nobody heard of Renee Estevez. All of the cast from top to bottom turn out absolutely awful performances, and I'm not surprised that popular Bruce Campbell kind of drifted off into knowhere after making this.
I cannot give this movie one single piece of praise, its just a pale imitation of far worse films that came before it. And even at the bargain price of £4.99 from Play.com where I purchased the movie, I still feel done. On a personal note its kind of worse for me, as I have waited 20 years to see this movie, and even something halfway bad would have been an improvement.
Special Features
An Interview with Sam Spiegal tells us nothing really about the movie, or his past. It actually appears to be a kind of "how great I am" piece, while he tries desperately to remain modest. He should have learned from the actors in his movie, that particular style of acting is really not convincing.
Two Trailers - Both of which stupidly give away the identity of the killer! DOH!!!!!
Production Notes - Just text waffle but no explanation of why the movie took two years to complete.
Cast & Crew Bibliographies - The irony of this feature is it shows how bad most involved were due to the fact that their careers ended shortly after.
Pictures of Intruder (DVD)
Cover
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Production Year: 1998 - Horror - Director: Steve Miner - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Michelle Williams, Adam Arkin, Adam Hann-Byrd, Janet Leigh, L.L. Cool J.
It's 10pm the night before Walnut Lakes neighbourhood supermarket closes it's doors ... more
forever. The owners and night crew have a long shift ahead of them... longer than they think.Weird things start happening. The phone lines are cut... and the nightcrew ...
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