Intruder (1989)
It’s wacky tobacky time in the attic of the Walnut Lake Market, with Scott Spiegel’s gross-ery store (price) slasher, Intruder—aka Night Crew: The Final Checkout, which marks a dip into the bloody funny pool belonging to Sam&Bruce&Scotty&Ted. Sam Raimi-buddy and early years comrade, Spiegel (co-writer of Evil Dead II) directs the director here, in an innovative, feature version of his Super-8 short, Night Crew—the story and producer credit going to original Tarantino collaborator, Lawrence Bender. Despite the lame tussles, and dumbbell silliness, Intruder’s inventive, OTT kills, keen visual sense, and the fact it’s utterly aware of itself, elevate it beyond the typical, routine amateurism of its ilk.
Spiegel, and DoP, Fernando Argüelles, chuck the kitchen sink at the cinematography, with Dutch angles galore, crash zooms abound, a pervading, ominously voyeuristic atmosphere is achieved, using disorienting perspectives, quirky, creative match cuts from stabbings to watermelon slicings, a shopping trolley cleverly framed like a jail cell, a cracking price gun transition, countless, brilliantly lit and staged reflections, impossible mirror shots, where we puzzlingly don’t glimpse the camera. I admire its unbridled imagination. There’s evidence of an acute directorial eye behind the lens, with Scotty taking the bloody baton from Sam, and running with it like a kid with sharp scissors. To a lesser degree than Dead By Dawn in terms of sheer cinematic execution, but its attention to angles takes the cake, eats it, regurgitates it, then takes it again—with (deep breath) bin-cam, fireplace-cam, hydraulic press-cam, pervert-cam, cash register-cam, mop and bucket-cam, seemingly dead body-cam, and cling film-cam, all leading to an enjoyable game of, “Whose Perspective Is It Anyway?”
Back in ‘89, the director’s cut was illegal in the UK, so make sure you snag the uncut, 88 minute version. It boasts a body count of nine, for those amongst you asking, “How many killin’s?” Like a cringe-inducing cleaver between the fingers, the KNB team is let loose, with some truly disgustingly grisly slayings. So, if you want to witness the infamous “bandsaw lobotomy” with a high-powered meat slicer, a Sting on a magazine cover jump scare—twice, a turn by Renée Estevez—sister to Charlie and Emilio, and daughter of Martin Sheen, Darkman’s Dan Hicks, persistent phantom laundry detergent falling off a shelf, Bruce Campbell and Lawrence Bender as cops, “Gregory” Nicotero as “Townie in Car,” a creative murderer, who neatly re-stacks paper towels, the wunderkind director of The Evil Dead getting hoyed through a Diet Pepsi stand, head-squashing, hook-impaling, eyeball-squishing, goretastic, meaty chunks of torsos and legs in boxes, and a severed hand in a lobster tank, Intruder will oblige.
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