With the holiday season careening around the corner, stores all over America are rolling out their seasonal junk and putting everything on sale. Naturally, this puts me in the mood for some consumer carnage. Enter Scott Spiegel’s fabulously fun 80s supermarket slasher, Intruder, the perfect bloody fit for those nights when you just want to shop ’til you drop… dead.
In all fairness, not much shopping actually happens in Intruder, but rather the night crew of the humble Walnut Lake Market is working hard to prepare for their Going Out of Business sale, an event which comes as a complete surprise to most of the store’s employees. Co-owner Bill (Dan Hicks) and young cashier Jennifer (Elizabeth Cox) seem especially downtrodden by the shop’s impending closure, but they power through their grief and try to get the job done. For Jennifer, this is easier said than done, as her abusive ex-boyfriend, Craig (David Byrnes), shows up at the store just before closing to announce that he’s been released from prison and doesn’t take kindly to his former lady-love’s lack of enthusiasm.
With Craig sniffing – or, rather, intensely leering – around and emotions running high, Walnut Lake becomes the perfect setting for a series of grizzly supermarket murders, most of which are humorously creative and provide the exact amount of grocery store gore one would hope to find in a film like this one. Are there meat hooks in the freezer? Let’s use those. Do we have a deli slicer? Oh, good – let’s rev that up, as well. Box cutter? Check! Hell, even the conveyor belts at the front of house get some good screen time.
In addition to Elizabeth Cox’s excellent induction into the final girl hall of fame, Intruder features memorable performances from both Sam and Ted Raimi, as well as a standout killer (he really is the perfect balance between hilarious and horrifying) and even a brief scene with a young Bruce Campbell in a snazzy police uniform. Overall, Intruder delivers a likable cast of characters and some genuine laughs, which is refreshing from within the din of cliché, two-dimensional kids getting killed left and right in traditional slashers (I say this, of course, as someone who prefers this genre above all others). I really dug most of the people in this movie and was sad to see them taken out. That’s also due to the real sense of camaraderie we feel from most of the staff; they feel very much like actual coworkers I’ve had throughout my life. They feel like friends.
One of the other things I enjoy most about Intruder is the camerawork. Cinematographer Fernando Arguelles (Mind Ripper, Hemlock Grove) made some unique and lovely choices throughout the film, from sinister reflections seen through glass bottles and fogged-up windows to a telephone conversation shot from inside the phone itself. A grocery store setting is rife with potential for visual creativity and Arguelles took full advantage of that environment, giving us a colorful stage upon which our victims can die good and proper.
And boy, do they die. All in all, I would say Intruder is a perfect watch for those nights when you’re looking for a horror film that’s quite bloody, a little manic and a lot of fun.
What I love about it: One of the more memorable (and criminally underappreciated) killers of the 80s, a truly kickass final girl and a great setting. Oh! And Bruce Campbell’s cameo.
What doesn’t quite work for me: Not enough Ted Raimi.
Overall rating: 
Final Girl Friday 