Blu-ray Review: Intruder
Review by Uncouth
As a young man I decided to work at the local grocery store to make money fast. See, I was stuck earning minimum wage and I needed more money so I could start my own small record label (bad idea). I figured grocery stores were union so they had to pay decently. I was offered the graveyard stocking position and I took it (worse idea). It was hard work. The first night I spent most of my time stocking water (heavy), dog and cat food (heavier) and rock salt (who the hell needs rock salt in California?!) I almost puked. Several times. My body didn’t like moving heavy stuff at 3am. I lasted a month, quit before my union dues were…due and put out an album that didn’t sell. It is with this fond memory that I watched Intruder. A film about a grocery store night crew getting bumped off one by one.
The story goes that Scott Spiegel, after co-writing Evil Dead II, was approached to write/direct his own film and he picked an old super 8mm film of his to get made with the much improved budget. He collected his Evil Dead II pals and pumped out Intruder. Special effects were handled by pre-KNB Effects Howard Berger, Robert Kurtzman and Greg Nicotero. The film features Ted and Sam Raimi in acting roles and even a cameo by Bruce Campbell. The real star, though, is the woefully underused Dan Hicks, the hillbilly from ED2 who screamed Bobby Joe about a million times.
The film itself is pretty much by numbers. A group of teens are being murdered inside a grocery store that, for some reason, they can’t just simply leave. It’s a typical slasher with nothing really interesting going on in the plot department. It doesn’t break any molds but fits snugly inside them. We all know who the killer is, even though we aren’t supposed to. Though I will say that, when the killing starts, it comes fast and furious and doesn’t let up until the end. What separates Intruder from the rest, is the incredible abundance of crazy vantage point shots. Shots from the perspective of a cup, a broom, a shopping cart, hell ,even a vantage shot from the phone! It’s obvious they had little dough to blow on the flick so they decided to get creative without spending much money and I absolutely love that. Sure, the script is dull, but the camera work is the star of the show and it helps to elevate what would be a totally forgettable flick into a fun time to be had. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched standard flicks and screamed at the screen “Do something interesting with the camera! Give me a tracking shot, a pan, a dutch angle, ANYTHING!” Intruder has them; someone finally listened.
Given the graphic cover art the question really is, so what about the gore? Well, it’s a mixed bag. We have plenty of off-screen kills but we also have some very graphic kills too. It wouldn’t be fair to call Intruder a gorefest but yes, there is grue to be had, including an amazingly realistic head encounter with a saw.
The disc itself comes with a DVD as well as the Blu-Ray which is nice for letting non HD friends borrow. The image is about as good as it can get from a flick shot on 16mm. It’s a bit grainy and honestly, the Blu-Ray isn’t a vast improvement on the DVD release which Wizard put out a few years ago. It does have some killer extras though, including extended kill scenes from a work print of the film which in some cases are much more graphic, and a great , well-produced behind the scenes feature which clocks in at nearly 40 minutes. It also includes outtakes from the original super 8mm version of the film and of course the ubiquitous commentary, this time from Spiegel and producer Lawrence Bender.
Intruder is a fun flick and a treat for Evil Dead/Sam Raimi fans. It’s an often forgotten or overlooked flick in the slasher canon and now it will hopefully be rediscovered on a proper Blu-Ray release with tons of great features. Fun fact: Hostel III is coming out soon and it was directed by none other than Scott Spiegel.
