The Intruder Within (1981)

Simply A Masterpiece

Fresh and Exciting

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Ridley Scott's magnificent Sci-Fi/horror classic "Alien" spawned (pun intended) a massive amount of rip-offs, most of which are cheesy, sleazy and excessively gory B-movies like "Creature", "Xtro", "Forbidden World" and "Inseminoid". The 1981 "The Intruder Within" is also a blatant "Alien" rip- off, but considering this is a low-budgeted and made for TV production, you shouldn't expect to see any outrageous bloodshed or flamboyant special effects here. Instead, the film relies almost entirely on its fairly unique setting of a highly secluded oil rig somewhere in the middle of a not specifically mentioned ocean (and even if it was specifically mentioned, I must have missed it). The crew of an oil rig of the Zoltran Company is drilling at a very unusual place, and Chief Jake Nevins is beginning to suspect that something isn't kosher. Personally I think it's their own damn fault, because who would want to work for a company with such a sinister name as "Zoltran"? You just know that they're up to no good! Anyways, the geographical engineer on board recovers a few odd and nasty eggs from the sea and a couple of poor suckers die in mysterious circumstances. Turns out Zoltran is looking for a monstrous species that already exterminated humanity once before, millions and millions of years ago, and now they found it! "The Intruder Within" is an admirable effort to bring an atmosphere- driven monster flick, but most of the script is dull and predictable. There are a couple of noteworthy moments of tension, for example the moody opening credits, and the cast members do whatever they can. Deep sea monsters, whether alien or earthly, are a rather unusual topic for TV-movies and director Peter Carter also tries hard to make his film like a regular feature, but many aspects (like music and editing) quickly reveal the television trademarks. Naturally the creature itself doesn't appear on screen until very late in the film, supposedly because it isn't fully grown yet, but even when it briefly and vaguely appears it's all too obviously a crew-member is a cheap rubber suit. Okay entertainment for monster-movie fanatics, but passable for everyone else.

Here are the parallels: Blue collar workers aboard an isolated company oil rig (fuel-refining space ship) stumble upon several prehistoric (alien) eggs that spawn powerful and ferocious creatures with an unusually rapid growth rate, one of which "impregnates" a female (male) member of the rigging crew who has a creature burst out of her (his) stomach...all under the watchful eye of a treacherous company geologist (science officer).Unbelievable.I'm shocked nobody got slapped with a lawsuit for this one.Still, the oil-rig setting is inventive and most of the performances are half-decent, as is some of the dialogue. But the action and suspense (what little there is of both) show up in fits and starts... and this TV movie was obviously hindered by too many budgetary and content restrictions to make any kind of an impact.

I must admit that I really like this jarringly harsh and downbeat made-for-TV "ALIEN" copy. This time the rugged roughneck crew of a remote off-shore oil rig are terrorized by a large, scaly, fanged, lumbering centuries old humanoid beast dredged up from the ocean floor. Sure, the plot ain't much, but Peter Carter's crisply proficient direction (Carter previously gave us the superior and underrated Canadian "Deliverance" variant "Rituals"), the strikingly gloomy, fatalistic tone (the first victim is a panicky guy who had a nightmarish premonition of the impending disaster), a terrific, rousing score by the chronically unsung Gil ("A Cold Night's Death," "The Ultimate Warrior") Melle, several shockingly brutal violent episodes which really test the limits of what you can get away with in a TV movie (one luckless woman gets raped and dies giving birth to a brawny, fully grown man-sized monster!), the unusually well-drawn and engaging characters, and the cool creature design by James Cummins and H. R. Giger turn this unassuming little number into a modest, but surefire winner. Chad Everett as the hard-nosed crew chief has the right tough stuff to cut it as a fine hero, while Joseph Bottoms, Jennifer Warren, Matt Craven, Lynda Mason Green and especially the ever-personable Rockne ("Black Sampson") Tarkington are solid in sturdy supporting parts.

Unfortunately rather boring. I watched it on the Trans World Entertainment big box videotape. Given that that company is still around, I wonder why they haven't rereleased their titles on DVD? Lost the rights? The cover of the box features a close-up side view of the monster's head; it's a better, clearer view than is ever had in the movie. It's a fairly cool H.R. Giger-esquire Alien-type thing.A bunch of people are on an oil rig that is having problems. The drill brings up some stones and a lamprey-like/Alien chestburster-type creature that latches onto a man and ends up killing him. One of the crew sneaks away some of the stones, which are perhaps actually eggs. He experiments keeping them under heat and under cold.Another crew member pricks his finger on one of the stone/eggs, and goes slowly insane. Some of the eggs hatch, and some more people die.Most of the time, the tedium of being on an oil rig is conveyed. People talk about their steak dinners, or about omelets. Part of the trouble with the pacing of the movie may be due to its having been a TV movie, complete with fade-to-black scenes.There are a few women on board the rig. One of them gets attacked by one of the men who are going insane. She gets to become a mother the wrong way.Last scene of the movie is sort of puzzling. A boat leaves the rig, and there are people still on the rig. Did they decide to stay? Were they quarantined?