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Produced by Lawrence Bender, directed by Scott Spiegel (writer of Evil Dead 2) and starring Sam and Ted Raimi, Intruder is exactly the type of supermarket slasher film you’d expect from those wacky minds. Intruder has one hand slopped in a bucket of gore and the other hand in the era of slapstick comedy and the two, when put together, operate quite nicely as a cohesive unit. Made before the whole slasher genre came to a grinding halt in the late 1980s, Intruder, making its HD debut courtesy of Synapse Films, is a great example of the near-perfect cult film.
The premise is simple enough: Walnut Lake Market, a local neighborhood grocery store, is closing its doors for good in exactly one week. Co-owner Bill (Dan Hicks) has let his night shift know of the situation. Dire times, indeed. Cashiers Jennifer (Elizabeth Cox) and Linda (Renee Estevez) wonder what they are going to do for another job as they prepare to close down the store. Soon enough, Jennifer’s ex-boyfriend, Craig (David Byrnes) arrives to confront her about their nasty break-up. Heated tensions between himself and her and fellow employees Randy (Sam Raimi), Danny (Eugene Robert Glazer), and Dave (Billy Marti) quickly cause the discussion to turn violent and Criag is booted from the building with a warning from the entire night shift.
They lock the door and wait for him to leave.
Unfortunately for them, it is all their last night working at the grocery store. A killer is locked in with them; a killer that likes to use common grocery store items and machinery for his tools; a killer that has no face only one blinding purpose…to kill and kill again.
Written and directed by Spiegel, there is a nice sense of play behind the story and the sequencing of shots. Early on, shocks are edited out and bracketed by common grocery store errors; a knife coming down into one man’s head quickly gives way to a knife slicing open a bag on accident. Later, the shocks are firmly in place with some fantastic gore effects that, unflinchingly, never give in to the less-is-more sensibility. Spiegel allows the camera to roll about all over the grocery store. There’s a gonzo-like bravado that parades about behind some of the grocery cart shots. Even the film’s editor King Wilder and its cinematographer Fernando Arguelles give praise to Spiegel for the creation of the shots and angles that keeps the audience on the edge of sanity.
The fantastic gore effects though – 22 years later – will completely have your head rotating. They are phenomenal. Robert Kurtzman, Greg Nicotero, and Howard Berger, working on a budget of straws and pennies, have created a celebrated heap of low-budget gore that continues to work on HD; it’s near flawless in just how realistic and over-the-top it is. One poor sucker gets a blade through the gum line in his mouth and the camera never loses sight of the kill-shot. Fortunately, Synapse Films has seen fit to restore the unrated version of the film and presents Intruder with all its fantastic gore.
With late-in-the-hour cameos from Bender himself and Evil Dead actor Bruce Campbell, Intruder is a definite must-own for any fan of Michigan’s celebrated film community and/or lover of clever-minded B-movie madness.
MPAA Rating: This title has not yet been rated by the MPAA.
