Obscure Slasher Week: Intruder

Okay folks just need to clarify this review does not reference Roger Corman’s The Intruder.    Far too classy for this week I am afraid. So what do you get when you assist a buddy in your career?  Well you are obligated to do the same so without further adieu let’s get it on.  This is Intruder.

Ohmigod, when did we start serving scruffy white guys?

Spoilers won’t let us be!!!

Writer/director Scott Spiegel (Stryker’s War, Evil Dead II, Hit List, The Rookie and From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money) corralled his Evil Dead alumni for a slasher film of his own choosing  as well as some veteran horror actors and scream queens for this little masterpiece. 

As the local supermarket store is about to close, Jennifer (Elizabeth Cox of Sixteen Candles, The Wraith, Night of the Creeps, The Allnighter and Juarez: Stages of Fear) gets harassed by her psycho ex-boyfriend Craig (David Brynes of Witchcraft 7: Judgment Hour, Witchcraft IX: Bitter Flesh and The Hamster Wheel).  Sensing her co-worker is in trouble, Linda (Renee Estevez of Heathers, Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers, Die Silence, Touch and Die, Single White Female and Paper Hearts) hits a panic button and her Supermarket Friends Assemble!   The co-owner of said store Bill (Dan Hicks of Evil Dead II, Maniac Cop, Easy Wheels, Darkman, Wishmaster and Spider-Man 2) confronts the little puke and a scuffle ensues.  The rest of the night crew head out to grab Craig for the cops while Jennifer calls them and Craig disappears under the shadow of darkness.  He later in his ultimate wisdom decides to leave a series of innerving calls to the store tormenting Jennifer and the cops basically say they will keep an eye out for him and just be careful.  Yeah no stationed police cruiser or anything, you should just use the buddy system.

Deadlines are murder...see that was a pun...I'll stop now.

 Well the place is locked down for the night and now the daunting time of inventory and let’s face it folks we are clearly in for a night of fun, if fun including gluing your eyelids shut or sitting through a Superfriends marathon then yes it will be fun.  Linda checks out for the night and heading home in time for Family Ties or some such when she is attacked by unknown and unseen assailant.   This leads to a simple stabbing to get the heart rate up, but not overtly graphic this early in the show.  Bill spots someone at the back door and goes to investigate.    Jennifer still wigging out over Craig hides out in the bathroom to regain some modicum of composure.   Good luck with that darlin’, we are in a horror movie remember?

And now just a few observations I have gleamed from this movie.  Spiegel seemed to like Sam Raimi’s Shaky cam effect for running around the store and developed this weird shot of a POV shot through a rotary telephone.  Inspiring notion as well as a bit of dolly track and lots of handheld, the camera work is solid.   

A pound of shrimp for $2.98? SOLD!

The entire film was shot in a grocery store in Bell, California during evenings when the store was closed so as far as sets go they had total autonomy.    Oh and you Bruce Campbell fans will be a little disappointed that Bruce shows up towards the end as a cop of two maybe three lines of dialogue and we never get a close up on him.  He is treated like every state trooper of Friday the 13^th.  Background babble and looking horrified.    Oh and FYI, get the unrated version or you miss all the cool gore gags KNB EFX made.    A very simplistic story and a great throwback to the slasher genre, our film here is a hidden gem of the horror community.