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Released by: Synapse Films
Released on: December 13, 2011.
Director: Scott Spiegel
Cast: Elizabeth Cox, Renee Estevez, Danny Hicks, David Byrnes, Sam Raimi, Ted Raimi
Year: 1988
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The Movie:
Directed by Scott Spiegel, co-writer on Evil Dead II, and produced/co-written by Lawrence Bender, who would later produce Pulp Fiction, 1989's Intruder also features performances by horror movie royalty such as Sam and Ted Raimi, Bruce Campbell, Danny Hicks and Elizabeth Cox. If that doesn't peak your interest, the film features some early work from Robert Kurtzman, Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger - the now legendary KNB Effects guys.
The story is a fairly simple one - the crew working the night shift at a supermarket is burning the midnight oil long past closing time to stock the shelves, price new items and clean up after the day's work. As they've just learned that the store is to be closing down for good soon, they're getting ready for the impending sale, sort of a last hurrah. Things are going fine until one of the cashiers, Jennifer (Elizabeth Cox), gets an unexpected visit from her crazy ex-boyfriend, Craig Peterson (David Byrnes). Having just gotten out of jail, he decides it's time to pay his old flame a visit but the rest of the night crew eventually kick him out and call the cops on him.
So with Craig out of the picture and the cops having been called, you'd assume things would be fine for the rest of the night, right? Well, it wouldn't make for much of a horror movie if that were the case. Soon enough, someone gets into the locked store and starts slaughtering members of the crew one at a time - chopping off limbs, carving through heads and generally just making a big, bloody, gory mess of things. But who is it? Is it Craig…? Is it some random psycho? Or is it one of their own?
Bruce Campbell might only be in the movie for a couple of minutes (he and producer/co-writer Bender play cops) but the Raimi's and the rest of the cast make up for that, even if Cox as the female lead is a bit vapid. Highlighted by a really fun cast (Sam and Ted Raimi are great as a few of the grocery store workers and Danny Hicks is his always reliable self), Intruder may not earn high marks in the originality department but it manages to make up for that with some decent black comedy and some relentlessly gory kill scenes and splatter effects. Heavily trimmed when originally released on VHS, the director's cut as presented here really gives the KNB guys a chance to strut their stuff and show off what makes them some of the best in the business. Made on a low budget, the film nevertheless really excels in the gore department and stands as a textbook example of how creativity and brains can overcome a lack of funds and really steal the show.
The supermarket setting is used well in the film. If the picture takes a little while to hit its stride it does manage to build some suspense with some clever camera angles that keep us guessing as to who is in the building with the employees. The characters may be paper thin and there may not be a whole lot of depth to any of this, but it sure does make for a fun slasher film.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Intruder looks pretty gosh darned good in this brand new AVC encoded 1080p high definition transfer from Synapse, who present the film in a new 2K restoration from elements that appear to have been in pretty good condition. There is a fair bit of grain here and there and some scenes look a bit softer than others, but the movie has always had this look to it, anyone who has seen it before will know that - and anyone who has seen it before will also be pretty impressed with the increase in clarity and detail here, particularly in the darker scenes where on previous releases it could be kind of tough to make out what was actually happening. Further, colors look good, skin tones look pretty natural and there are no edge enhancement, noise reduction or compression artifact problems. Shadow detail looks good, there are no issues with crush or banding - and really, it's hard to imagine anyone complaining about the transfer here, it looks great, particularly when you take into account the age and low budget.
The only audio option for the movie is a DTS-HD 2.0 Mono mix, in English, no alternate language options or subtitles are provided. Clarity is good here, the score sounds fine and the dialogue is always easy to understand. The levels are well balanced and there weren't any issues with hiss or distortion noticeable at all during playback. All in all this is a very clean and clear sounding mix.
Synapse have wrangled up a pretty solid selection of extra features for this release starting with an audio commentary with the film's director, Scott Spiegel, and the film's producer, Lawrence Bender. These guys are having a blast reminiscing about the movie as it plays out in front of them, talking about Spiegel's relationship with the Raimi's and Bruce Campbell, how various people from that scene wound up working in this movie, what it was like working with the KNB Effects guys, and lots more. Of course, Spiegel talks about his short film and how it lead to this feature, what it was like shooting on location in the supermarket, how Bender came on board, the film's distribution history and a lot more. There's basically no dead air here at all, and the camaraderie between the two participants makes this a whole lot of fun to listen to - apparently they shot the entire movie on short ends, they had a lot of trouble finding a store to shoot in, who did what on the movie, the close up of Sting on the magazine that pops up in the movie and a lot more.
Once you finish up with the commentary, check out the new featurette entitled Slashed Prices: The Making Of Intruder (38:24, HD). Interviewed here are Bruce Campbell, Scott Spiegel, Lawrence Bender, Charles Band (who executive produced), Elizabeth Cox, Burr Steers, Craig Stark, Danny Hicks, Ted Raimi, director of photography Fernando Arguelles, and of course, the movie's effects guys - Greg Nicotero, Howard Berger, and Robert Kurtzman. Some of these guys were recently interviewed by Red Shirt Pictures for their excellent Evil Dead II documentary and you get the impression some of this footage was shot at the same time. It's a pretty interesting piece and if it covers some of the same ground as the commentary track, there's enough new material in here to definitely make it worth checking out. Covered here are how Spiegel's Night Crew short film wound up turning into the feature version, the relationship between this film and the Evil Dead movies and how many of the same people were involved, shooting locations, effects work and gore scenes and what it was like working on the film from the cast perspective. A second, shorter featurette entitled The Slashing Of The Intruder (3:27, HD) is an interview with filmmaker Vincent Pereira who discusses his memories of reading about the film in an issue of Gorezone and then later finding it for rent at a local store and how disappointed it was to see how heavily the film had been cut and how it was almost entirely devoid of its infamous gore scenes. Irate, he wrote a letter to Gorezone complaining about the cuts, and then, weeks later, he got a package from Spiegel who saw his letter and sent him an uncut VHS tape in the mail - it's kind of a cool story and a nice inclusion on here.
From there, we delve into some alternate and trimmed bits - collected here are a few extended murder sequences taken from the original workprint of the film (10:26 - tape sourced with time code on top) - there isn't proper finished sound here but it's cool to see some alternate gore, some different bits of Sam Raimi's death and some other odds and ends. Also here are some outtakes from the now lost short film, Night Crew (6:50). Originally shot and edited on 8mm as a twenty minute short film, the original movie was lost. Spiegel did have some outtake footage kicking around, however, so he put it together as best he could with some music and effects work and it's presented here as sort of a taste of what that lost film would have been like. Synapse have also managed to dig up some original cast audition footage (11:04) shot before the film even went into production. Here you'll see Billy Marti, Renee Estevez, Elizabeth Cox, Eugene Glazer, David Byrnes, Burr Steers and Danny Hicks all doing their best to land spot in the movie.
Rounding out the extras are a trailer for Intruder (1:19, HD), a trailer for Night Crew: The Final Checkout (1:19), a still gallery (4:20, HD), animated menus and chapter stops. As this is a DVD/Blu-ray Combo Pack release, there's a DVD included inside the Blu-ray case as well which features standard definition versions of everything on the Blu-ray disc. There's also a nifty little Synapse Films 2012 catalogue tucked away inside the keepcase that dishes the dirt on some upcoming titles (listed here).
The Final Word:
If Intruder won't wow you with startling plot twists or amazing performances, it'll definitely impress with its gore and its kill scenes. Synapse's Blu-ray release is excellent, offering the film up in great quality and with a load of great extra features and overall this is just a really fun and ridiculously entertaining release that any slasher buff ought to appreciate.
Click on the images below for full size Blu-ray screen caps (some of which contain spoilers)!
