Intruder (1989)

A bunch of people are working in a store at night and someone starts to kill them off in a number of imaginative ways. That's the plot of Intruder. It's flimsy, it's simple and it's all that is needed to get from one gory death to the next.

Let me start by saying that I didn't LOVE Intruder. In fact, there were a few scenes that had me wondering if everyone who had ever recommended the movie to me had suffered from a temporary lapse in taste. The characters, for the most part, aren't all that appealing and the structure of the film sticks so rigidly to the slasher formula - people go their separate ways to be picked off without anyone noticing until the big reveal in the third act - that it borders on parody.

Then I started to get the vibe of the thing. It was a good time on a disc, nothing more and nothing less. There may be no standard logic to the whole thing but it's unnecessary. This is a movie all about providing viewers with the best in gory mayhem while also playing around with camera angles that show you the action from the inside of a telephone, for example. It's a lot of fun and that's all it aims to be.

Sadly, it still suffers from that bland cast. Dan Hicks is superb in his role, and it's always good to see both Ted and Sam Raimi popping up in horror movies (this was written and directed by Scott Spiegel, from the story idea by himself and Lawrence Bender, and that's why the a lot of the folks comes from the Evil Dead II talent pool) but Elizabeth Cox, sadly, doesn't give her character any warmth, which means that viewers don't really care all that much for her while she's in peril. Renee Estevez isn't much better. The rest of the cast are pretty much interchangeable, with the exception of David Byrnes who plays an ex-boyfriend who can't accept that things are over. The character played by Byrnes is also, of course, the main suspect but is he the killer?

But, oh boy, those death scenes. Never mind the mixed bag of actors onscreen, once the kills start up this is one slasher movie that may instantly barge its way into your Top 10. The 30-45 minute middle section is about as good as it gets when it comes to this kind of stuff. It's just a shame that the start isn't all that great and the final 20 minutes are pretty damn boring but this is still the best movie that Spiegel has directed and he can easily be proud of the final product.

Highly flawed but also highly entertaining.

7/10

This Bluray is suitable for all regions - http://www.amazon.com/Intruder-Directors-Cut-Blu-ray-Combo/dp/B005S2F8LQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1349684857&sr=8-1&keywords=intruder+blu+ray