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What happened to this underrated 80s slasher movie?
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00:00You ever just come across a movie that kind of recalibrates your brain a little bit?
00:05Like, something you discover, absorb, and then it becomes like a little part of your movie
00:11personality? Oh, I had this happen again this week with an 80s slasher I'm now also kicking
00:19myself for not having seen before. Scott Spiegel's Intruder from 1989. Now, I know what you're
00:26thinking. That's a lamest ass title right there, Ewan. And yeah, you'd be right, but peel back the
00:33curtain just a smidge and feast your peepers on the synopsis and cast list, and I guarantee you'll
00:38be dancing around your living room like Crispin Glover in Friday the 13th Part 4. Just pure going
00:45for it, you know? My best impression of Crispin Glover doing his thing. The microphone came off for a
00:55little bit there, but it's okay. We continue. Oh, but please, please do not Google this movie
01:02whatever you do, because the poster spoils everything, as does the trailer. So, yeah,
01:07go in as blind as you can. This is all I had to go off and make me do the
01:11crisp maneuvers at 10pm on
01:14a Tuesday night. So, trust me when I say, the less you know, the better. Also, we're going to do
01:20like a
01:20fun voice thing for this synopsis. It's going to be great. You're going to love it, right?
01:25The overnight stock crew of a local supermarket find themselves being stalked and slashed
01:32by a mysterious maniac. Intrigued? Enraptured? Seduced? Maybe not the last bit, but that kind
01:43of piques your interest, right? Like, we're off to a great start already. Feels kind of goofy and fun,
01:49like a bottle horror in a supermarket. Extreme hell yeah vibes. But things get better when you peep the
01:56cast and crew. So, it's directed by Scott Spiegel, who co-wrote Evil Dead 2, and who you may recognize
02:03as this guy from Spider-Man 2. Amazing. Great start. It stars Liz Kern, Rene Estevez, Dan Hicks,
02:10and best of all, Bruce Campbell, Sam Raimi, and Ted Raimi, the latter of whom plays a guy called
02:17Produce Joe, which may just be the best credit in horror movie history. If you have a better one,
02:23let me know down in the comments because I genuinely love this stuff. All around, the film was serving some
02:29impeccable aura, and when I looked at the Letterboxd reviews, I was given even more encouragement,
02:35as Mutuals had rated it pretty highly. Josh Brown even gave it a three-star review, which,
02:41by my own logic, is like a U and four. So, I was pretty buzzed. And yeah, the movie is
02:48just wonderful.
02:49It's amazing. Why the hell has this not been in my life for as long as it has been? I'm
02:53not gonna go
02:53into spoilers here, just because Intruder very much feels like a hidden gem more people need to watch.
03:00But I will go into the how and why it's so good, and why I think you should consider it
03:05for your
03:05next watch this Spooktober. So, let's get into it. So, first things first. Intruder comes out at a
03:13really interesting time in the overall rise and fall and rise again of the slasher sub-genre. Coming right
03:21at the tail end of the 80s, where we've really gotten into the excess and glut of Halloween and
03:27Friday the 13th ripoffs, and also bad Halloween and bad Friday the 13th sequels, which means that
03:33it kind of had a lot stacked against it in terms of performing to the point of it getting, you
03:38know,
03:40wide mainstream acclaim and recognition. Least of all from mainstream movie critics, who, at the time
03:46again, were really, you know, flying the flag for just horror hating. Big horror hating vibes. This
03:53was also probably made even worse for the fact that the cover for the movie like literally spoils who
03:59the villain is. Like, why would you do that? It's so bad. But anyway, I digress. For those of you
04:06who
04:07are familiar with the Evil Dead franchise, and you really should be if you're watching this,
04:11you'll kind of already know the tone that this is kind of shooting for. It's basically like the Evil
04:18Dead, but for the slasher genre, rather than anything mystical. We've got some delicious, delicious
04:25gore effects from Greg Nicotero here. And yeah, Intruder overall, it is a slasher, but I guess you
04:32probably more likely call it a splatter movie, given the amount of gore in here, and oh my god, the
04:39effects
04:39are incredible. Basically, every single appliance you can imagine causing someone harm in a supermarket
04:45gets its moment to shine here. And when these appliances do get their moment to shine, well,
04:54the blood is red and shiny and goopy, and oh my god, there are some really wince-inducing moments here,
05:01but done in that kind of Evil Dead-ish slapstick humorous way. And like Evil Dead, you really do
05:09kind of sometimes get this guerrilla filmmaking vibe from it. It had a pretty decent budget, but
05:15more so in the sense that it's very clearly a bunch of really passionate bunch of friends who have come
05:21together to make something inherently quite ludicrous, but also occasionally affecting at times.
05:27And that obviously comes from the fact that we have both Raimi brothers here. It's just great getting to see
05:34Sam in particular in front of the camera. Obviously, Ted Raimi has been in a lot of stuff over the
05:39years,
05:39ranging from, you know, the likes of the Evil Dead, all the way to like the Philip Noyce Jack Ryan
05:45movie
05:45starring Harrison Ford, and obviously, you know, Twin Peaks and all sorts of different stuff. But Sam is a little
05:51bit
05:51less prolific as an actor, so getting to see him here doing fun horror-y things, but being on the
05:58other
05:59side of the camera, that's really fun. And if you're a fan of Evil Dead, or Spider-Man, or Darkman,
06:05or whatever other man thing that Sam Raimi has directed over the years, you're gonna have a blast
06:10seeing him strut his stuff and having a fun time here. Ted does have the better character name though,
06:16like Produce Joe. It just tickles my brain in a way that I really enjoy. It's just fun to say
06:21out loud. Produce Joe. It's a great time. I suppose I should also give this a little bit more of
06:28a
06:28detailed synopsis than the one-sentence one I gave earlier. Again, don't worry, no spoilers.
06:33Basically, what we have here is we have a bunch of like late teens, early 20-something kind of,
06:39you know, supermarket employees working after hours when people start to go missing and things start
06:45to get goopy. Now, the interesting thing is that our lead, played by Liz Kearns, her abusive ex-boyfriend
06:53shows up on the scene just as these happenings start to occur. So, suspicion is immediately placed
07:01on this guy, but there are all sorts of other curveballs the plot throws at you to keep you
07:05guessing about who it could be behind all the carnage and mayhem, and it just really, really works.
07:11Like with Evil Dead, this is also a movie that's teeming with love for the genre. With it being
07:17in the slasher mold, we get some cool little visual flourishes that immediately invoke the likes of
07:23Psycho, Halloween, and Friday the 13th, but again, it's its own flavor. It's very much a case of like
07:31taking those almost kind of appliance-based slashers and splatter movies we got in the 70s and 80s,
07:37but doing it in a much more fun, satirical way. It kind of reminds me a lot about,
07:43not Wes Craven's scream, it's not a very good comparison, but in terms of sheer raw bananas energy,
07:49this thing kind of operates at the same tempo as the people under the stairs. It's just constantly
07:54gonzo, constantly going, but deeply irreverent. And obviously, again, the Evil Dead being a very
07:58similar kind of tonal touchstone. And on the subject of how the movie looks, I know I've mentioned
08:05there that there are lots of these great little smart visual flourishes that recollect classic
08:09horror movies and classic slasher movies in particular, but the movie is doing more than
08:15just paying homage to its cinematic forebears. It looks really, really good. Spiegel pulls off
08:22some amazing sequences here, whether it's a great chase sequence involving someone hopping over
08:28different tills to get out their victim. And there's also just some really great, clever,
08:34funny, witty editing. Lots of really fun kind of like snap cuts where we have, you know, someone in
08:41mortal peril involving some kind of appliance, and then we'll cut to someone else who's using a machine
08:47or cutting up something and, you know, getting that kind of like a visual hook in. And it's also
08:53really deceptive in that way, because you think the first two times it does this, it's like, okay,
08:57we're going to avoid showing the really meaty parts of these kills. But no, the further we go
09:03into the film, the gorier and messier it gets. And there are, there are some sequences in here
09:08that are really, oh my God, just make sure you're not eating when you watch. But if you're like me,
09:15you'll be watching them and going, hell yeah. Oh my God, this is amazing. Because it's that kind of,
09:20you know, irreverent approach to the subject matter that keeps things from going a little
09:28bit too heavy. Although you will feel sad when certain characters bite the dust just by, you
09:33know, how much fun they are to hang around with. It is just technically resplendent all around.
09:40There is this one shot that I've been thinking about for the past few days now, where someone has
09:45been killed and their blood spills out onto a knocked over a light bulb. And it makes this
09:50gorgeous, goopy, red light aura glow around the room. It's just really clever. The movie doesn't
09:59rush through these moments either. It lets certain deaths linger. You really kind of get to bask in
10:04the cruel irony of it all. And again, the humor is there. It's an ever present, but it does get
10:11brutal at times. And I like that, you know, Spiegel is able to balance both the humor of the subject
10:18matter and then also like the genuine peril and kind of grotesqueness of it all. It's just a really
10:25unique wavelength to operate at and it pulls it off with a plop. Frustratingly though, the best thing
10:31potentially about the movie is something I can't even talk about because it is the main villain who
10:36is a surprise reveal. But trust me when I say that when this person shows up and you get to
10:42go into
10:42the full mask off territory of that performance, oh my God, they're having so much fun. So many great
10:52quotable lines here that again, I can't spoil because you'll want to hear them for the first time
10:57yourself when you watch the movie. I know this is probably very frustrating to watch if you have seen
11:01the movie and you're just like, just say it even. But I think this is something you need to experience
11:06yourself if you haven't. And I'm just going to butcher the quotation anyway, but yeah, the main
11:12villain performance here is so good. It's mysterious before you get the big reveal, but when that big
11:18reveal comes, it's just, it's just a great old time. There are some janky aspects to the film, but
11:25they're really kind of just negligible. And if they're not, they just add to its charm. There are some
11:31funky choreography involving fight scenes at the very beginning. But apart from that,
11:36it is just a fantastic time overall. And this is genuinely one of my favorite slashers now.
11:40I'm not over-exaggerating. You could say that maybe I've not swam into the big deep end of the
11:46pool in this sub-genre, at least for the 80s. But for this, I just thought it was wonderful. It
11:53just
11:53hit every single note that I wanted it to. And like I said at the beginning on this video,
11:58there's a reason why Intruder is so slept on. Partly it's because it released during the,
12:04I guess you could call them dark ages of the slasher genre at the tail end of the 80s.
12:09It did perform better on home video, but I also think having the main killer be revealed in the
12:15poster in the trailer probably didn't help things either. Although it is a very cool poster.
12:21The other thing here though, is that the title Intruder is just really vague and nebulous and
12:29also just kind of generic. Like it's genuinely really lucky that as I was streaming through
12:35Jeff Bezos' streaming slot minds, I came across it and clicked on it because I was hooked in by just
12:43seeing a sliver of the actual, you know, synopsis and also the cast list. But Intruder on its own
12:51just doesn't sound fairly buzzworthy or notable. Like there are better titles out there we could
12:58have used maybe. Like Cut Price, Everyone Must Go. I know Chopping Mall was already taken. Can't have
13:07After Hours because that's a Scorsese movie. But you know, something that's a little bit more
13:12punny and goes into like, you know, the super market-y nature of it all. I think that would be
13:19good. Let me know your alternate titles for this. What would you call Intruder? I need to know
13:25because my mind's going blank. Cut Price seems fun. And the tagline would be Everyone Must Go.
13:32But I don't know. Let me know. Let me know. I need to know. I need to know. Oh, I've
13:37got another.
13:37What about Reduced to Fear? It's like Reduced to Clear when you have reductions. That's the worst
13:44one I've come up with yet. You will all have better suggestions for me, I'm absolutely sure. Don't let
13:51me down, please. And yeah, that just about sums up all of my thoughts on Intruder. I know this is
13:57a
13:57little bit of an off-the-cuff kind of rambly video, but I really did just want to get into
14:02the studio today and just go bleh about a horror movie I really enjoyed, which I kind of think is
14:07the best way to talk about the stuff you enjoy. Let us know in the comments below if you enjoyed
14:13it.
14:13And also make sure that you go watch Intruder if you haven't already. And also re-watch it if you
14:19have because it's a great time. Tis the season and all that. I also want to say as well, I've
14:23only just
14:24found out that Scott Spiegel actually passed away last month, which is so sad. What an amazing
14:30talent, what a great collaborator with Sam Raimi on The Evil Dead, you know, co-writing Evil Dead 2 is
14:36one of the greatest horror movies ever made. And also leaving Intruder for us all as well. That's
14:43an amazing legacy. So yeah, thoughts and like feelings and everything going out to Scott Spiegel's
14:50friends and family because it is so recent. But yeah, I just want to say that I love this movie.
14:56It was so, so good. So yeah, that about covers everything. Again, I hope you really enjoyed
15:02watching this. I've been Ewan. This is What Culture Horror and hopefully I'll catch you next time. Bye.
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