Trigger Warning: Profanity and discussions of domestic abuse ahead.
Grocery shopping can be a pleasant experience. Being surrounded by various produce while looking for the right deal or a new, adventurous ingredient can be fun, especially for the more culinarily gifted. For the employees in charge of cleaning and stocking these caloric meccas, it is much less than exciting. Dealing with dozens, if not hundreds, of different people and personalities is enough to drive a person insane. In Intruder, we dive into how crazy working at the grocery store can make you. Okay, so the movie isn’t that deep, and we won’t learn anything. At the very least, we’ll discover all sorts of creative ways to kill someone in a store we all are familiar with.
Intruder is a “horror” slasher film that hit the silver screen in 1989. It starred Elizabeth Cox, our main protagonist, and was directed by Scott Spiegel. What I find hilarious, disingenuous, and outright wrong is the marketing of this movie. For some absurd reason, the two names that are most heavily advertised in this are Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell, the director and the star of The Evil Dead series. Familiar names, right? Well, what if I told you that even though the film advertises their names as characters starring in the movie, they’re barely in it? Sam Raimi plays a supporting role who hangs out in the back of the supermarket the whole flick, and Bruce Campbell only shows up in THE LAST MINUTE OF THE MOVIE! This is not hyperbole; he literally shows up as a no-name cop at the end to arrest the villain. I’m sure some people would be offended by having such a legendary director and actor dangled in front of them to make a ticket sale, but looking at this a full 30-plus years in the future only has me laughing.
The movie follows the story of a local supermarket going through an innocuous workday. The main protagonist, Jen, just finished cashing out the last customer when Jen’s ex-boyfriend, Craig Peterson, stops to question her about his time in jail. Apparently, Craig’s ego couldn’t handle his ex-girlfriend’s answer, and he goes ballistic. After an intense 5-on-1 hugging match with some of the male employees, he runs away. Once the team finishes their fruitless search for the literal sexual deviant, the night shift gets together to talk about how the supermarket is getting sold. After promising the kids glowing reviews and extra paychecks to help with their future transition, everyone heads straight to work where they stock shelves, flirt, and try to SURVIVE!
Straight out the gate, I need to level with you, dear reader: The story in Intruder means absolutely nothing. Essentially, after Craig Peterson gets done literally assaulting his ex, he disappears for most of the movie, and everyone just does their job while getting killed in more and more intense ways. Craig should be wearing a red jacket instead of a black leather one because he has “RED HERRING” written all over him. Spoiler, but not really, one of the co-owners is the killer. The reason I say not really is because the trailer for this movie spoils the twist ending! I have never seen such a ridiculous assortment of decisions. I would be appalled if the movie wasn’t so damn hilarious.
What this film lacks in storytelling, it makes up with kills. The intensity of each victim’s death ramps up in creative and gory fashion. Although the first death in this movie can be described as nothing short of “it sucks,” the gore and deaths become more brutal as the film moves forward. You’ll get to see someone’s head get cut in half, another person gets crushed by a trash compactor and some more stylish displays of violence. My favorite death was a guy who got stabbed in the stomach by a huge knife. Normally, not bad. You can’t beat a classic, but what brings this death to the next level is the fact that the knife goes through the victim, into the beers behind him, which then EXPLODE! Gore and beer sprays everywhere and it is simply delightful. The gore is easily the highlight of this movie.
This movie is guilty of what I shall hereby be calling “Intruderisms.” Intruderism: adjective/noun: A description or thing that is so idiotically unaware that it can only exist within the confines of the film, Intruder. There are many weird quirks and lines in this movie that at first are incredibly stupid. You’ll hear people talking about Craig’s prison stint, which, by the way, he did a year for LITERAL SECOND DEGREE MURDER!! What? Or let’s talk about the fact that one of the employees of the supermarket worked himself up from butcher to co-owner. HOW? Has anybody at a job had the owner come up and say, “You know what, Billy-bob? You’ve been doing such a great job. Here’s half of my company. You earned it.” There are plenty more examples like these Intruderisms that you’ll pick up on that eventually you’ll be wondering if this movie isn’t just a shlocky slasher flick, but a brilliant parody of the genre itself.
Whatever genius that may have existed in Intruder is immediately squandered by the story beats. This is because there aren’t any. Once Craig “Red” McHerring disappears, the movie comes to a screeching halt. It’s literally just a bunch of shots of kids doing their job, then a weird reflective glass shot, and then a kill. Mr. Spiegel seems to really enjoy this type of shotbecause he uses it constantly to build tension. It’s enough where it becomes noticeable, let’s just say that. Add that to the Intruderism list. Regardless, this is how the movie goes for an hour. It takes everyone dying for Jen to finally start exploring! Let me reiterate everyone dies before any action happens! This has got to be the most baffling decision I’ve ever seen. I don’t understand how this was considered an okay story point. Let me ask you, how would you write a slasher story? Would you have the victims locked into a setting? Would you have the killer pick off the unsuspecting youths in silence? I bet you would never have expected all the characters to close their eyes and scream, “La la la you’re not real! You’re not real!” Truly an artistic decision, but not one I would say paid off.
Ending spoilers ahead: The killer’s plan is probably the most moronic and short-sighted idea I have ever seen. His goal was to kill one of the store owners so that the other one would automatically own the entirety of the supermarket. He decided to kill everyone else because they were in the way. I’m not sure about that last reason, but anyways, the end goal was to blame Craig for all the murders so he doesn’t have to sell the supermarket. This is dumb, like, so dumb. Outside of the fact that the shares of the store could just as easily go to the survivors of the dead businessman, the man’s fingerprints are on everything. There are literal mountains of forensic and circumstantial evidence to prove who committed the crime. By the end, he has two people arrested, Craig and Jen. There is absolutely no way that this accusation would have legs in court and to pretend it does to have a killer wins moment is eye-rolling. Although I find this entire plot to be hilarious, the story has so many holes that it can barely float on its own.
Unfortunately, there is very little to infer about the characterization in Intruder. Most of the characters are incredibly shallow and can be defined as dead men walking; they exist to adhere to a stereotype and die. Violently, might I add. As shocking as it is, this actually works to the movie’s benefit because most of the film is just the characters working and getting picked off one by one. They really don’t need characterization. In fact, a movie like Intruder would suffer with extra time added to help endear all these kids to the audience. Instead of wasting time for what amounts to meat puppets, it let the director focus on the brutal murder effects. Because of this the movie is of a reasonable length with a surprisingly fast pace for a horror movie, especially so for a movie that has such a one-dimensional plot.
It’s hard to be too upset about this film’s shortcomings. Ultimately, it is a pointless endeavor to be too critical. This movie is estimated to have cost about $130,000 to make; compared to the industry average in the 80’s of $18,000,000 tells a story of a lower than low budget. With such a tiny price it becomes obvious why they would slap names like Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell on the movie poster. It’s a cheap and easy advertisement for a project that couldn’t afford to blow much on money on ads in the first place. Sure, it’s derivative of its sub-genre contemporaries, but somehow the absurdity of all its flaws creates a truly unforgettable experience.
Now— here is my favorite part, my least favorite part, and the final verdict!
FAVORITE PART:
There were a lot of parts that were great; between all the kills, the goofy attempts at dialogue, and the Intruderisms, it all adds up to create a silly yet beautiful disaster. If I were to choose a moment though, it would definitely be when one of the victims gets impaled by a large knife and planted into the beers. The use of beers blowing up and spraying everywhere as an excuse to create an excessively bloody scene is unironically genius, and the kill just drips with creativity.
LEAST FAVORITE PART:
Any part that involves Craig. He sucks and is a horrible person. Not only is he a cringy dude who thinks he’s owed an explanation from the main protagonist, but he also hits her, sexually assaults her, and attacks everyone he encounters. On top of all this, he is the most obvious red herring to ever be included in a movie, to the point where I was genuinely upset because knowing they were going to use him to try to throw the audience meant that he wasn’t going to die at any time.
FINAL VERDICT: 3/10 Horror film
BUT
7/10 for entertainment.
As a horror movie Intruder fails on all levels. Nothing is scary. The tension build-up is squandered by a consistent timeline of deaths. The numerous goofy Intruderisms make the plot woefully unrealistic and immediately takes you out of whatever feelings of fear could have existed. What this movie doesn’t fail at is being an incredibly enjoyable experience. Everything that makes this movie fail as a horror movie makes it excel at being almost comedic. The addition of genuinely creative kills and an almost cartoonish way of displaying its gore gives the film less of a horror movie feel and more of a horror-themed feel. Mr. Steigel successfully created a movie that will live on in infamy. If you enjoyed films like Thankskilling, Troll 2, and The Room then you will adore this little forgotten gem of the past.
If you want to watch this movie you can find it on Shudder, a streaming service that specializes in horror movies. You can also simply rent/buy it from Prime video, but there are a couple of places to watch this one for free. If you decide to check this film out, I highly suggest checking out the commercial for it. Watching its ad before watching the movie gives it a perspective that, for me, makes it much more enjoyable as a whole.
No matter how you watch it, you’re in for a treat. Although a terrible horror movie, it finds a way to become a classic in its own respect. If you can I suggest slashing some time out of your day to give this film a chance!
