Best Meats in Town!   Scott Spiegel’s INTRUDER
Released by Synapse Films
Blu-Ray/DVD combo reviewed by Melissa Howard

The fine folks at Synapse films have recently released Intruder, Scott Spiegel’s 1989 vibrant slasher flick, on Blu-ray.  This deranged director’s cut sadly missed out on a theatrical release back in the day, finding itself instead on video store shelves at the tail end of a splatter filled decade. The film had landed an R-rating despite the fact that several murder sequences were cut, making this Blu-ray reissue a must see for any fan of the 80’s slasher-splatter genre – and this print definitely oozes with carnage.  Of course, the boys of KNB Efx group, cheap uk viagra Robert Kurtzman, Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger, (in their first notable stab at effects) truly beefed up the gore scenes to almost realistic proportions.

An intruder is loose in Michigan’s Walnut Lake Supermarket as a group of rag tag employees begin their night shift.  Moments prior, after their bosses announce that they will be selling the store to the city, the team learns that their jobs cialis headaches will be terminated in one month.  Several “ah shucks” and “what’ll I do now” moments ensue, suggesting that the Walnut Lake Supermarket is the best place to work on earth.  Spiegel doesn’t hold back on the tempered dialogue and predictable plot evolution, but this is what marks Intruder’s oddball, albeit self ware, sense of humour.

What follows is a game of hide and seek as cashier Jennifer (Elizabeth Cox) receives an unexpected visit from her ex-boyfriend who keeps breaking into the store – a transparent distraction meant to signal who the real intruder is.  Craig, the maniacal ex (played with utmost seriousness by David Byrnes) wreaks havoc on her face and that of co-owner Bill, played at full speed by a raving Dan Hicks.   After Craig is ousted from the shop, Jennifer tells her co-worker Linda (Renee Estevez) what best discount cialis a bad guy he is.  When Linda asks why and where he’ s been, the audience gets an eye-full of Spiegel’s absurdist camera work.  Jennifer answers, “behind bars” at which point the camera pans to effectively place Jennifer behind the bars of a shopping cart.  Wow!  This is the first and most giddily inane in a long line of visual gags, making Intruder a tenacious classic of the tongue and cheek slasher genre.

Gurgling, buzzing and popping sounds abound in Intruder, leading the audience down a blood soaked path through the extended second act.  The buy cheapest viagra online unseen assassin begins to pick off each employee, one by one, in an increasingly grotesque fashion: death by meat hook, death by trash compactor and the most impressive, death by buzz saw.  It’s here that the effects group of Kurtzman, Nicotero and Berger up the ante of the entire film in a ludicrous 45 minutes of knife and cleaver wielding.  Prosthetic parts aside, what remains a key feature and trademark of Spiegel’s work are the implausible perspective shots from all manner of angle and source.  At one point the camera leers at a character through a telephone dial for what feels like hours, leaving the viewer to wonder, what’s the point of this effect?   By the end of the viagra online without a prescription film, however, these distorted camera gazes create a new (and much more amusing) stalking camera technique, inherent in the genre.

Spiegel’s longtime friend Sam Raimi plays a butcher in the film, and brother Ted Raimi tags along as a fruit cutting, Walkman listening dweeb.  His grooving unawareness is openly foreshadowed – most likely due to his terrible choice in music – so he gets the axe early on.  Bruce Campbell, another Speigel and Raimi cohort (the gang all went to the same highschool in Birmingham, Michigan), makes a brief appearance at the end of the film.  This may or may not appeal to Campbell fans since his cameo lasts no more than a few seconds.  In any case, there is no lack of bloodshed or optical hijinks in Spiegl’s excessive Intruder.

Special Features:

Spiegel and producer Lawrence Bender deliver some rather intermittent audio commentary for the special features.  Others include outtakes from the now lost short film: NIGHT CREW (the film’s original name before the distributors changed it), extended murder sequences, original cast audition footage and more.  Not to be missed on the long list of special features however, is the new featurette, Slashed Prices.  This retrospective documents the story of the lost footage, special effects and memories of the times spent making Scott Spiegel’s feature directorial debut, Intruder.

About the author:

Melissa Howard