INTRUDER (1989): Director's Cut

INTRUDER
(US - 1989)  Written and directed by Scott Spiegel.  Cast: Elizabeth Cox, Renee Estevez, Danny Hicks, David Byrnes, Sam Raimi, Eugene Glazer, Billy Marti, Burr Steers, Craig Stark, Ted Raimi, Alvy Moore, Tom Lester, Emil Sitka, Bruce Campbell.  88 mins.  Unrated.

Just released on Blu-ray by Synapse Films, Scott Spiegel's maniac-loose-in-a-grocery store cult film INTRUDER is presented in its uncut, 88-minute version.  The Paramount VHS, issued back in 1989 (also the version currently streaming on Netflix), ran 83 minutes and had almost all of the gore footage cut, in addition to artwork that totally gave away the killer's identity.  Spiegel, his cult movie bona fides having been established two years earlier when he co-wrote EVIL DEAD II with pal Sam Raimi, was given a shot at writing and directing his own feature with INTRUDER, and while it's not a front-to-back success, there's a lot to appreciate in it, especially now that all the excised footage has been reinstated.  Spiegel accomplishes quite a bit with a budget of $130,000, and the Blu-ray looks fantastic.


The plot is rather simple:  Walnut Lake Market cashier Jennifer (Elizabeth Cox) is hassled near closing time by her psycho ex Craig (David Byrnes), who just got out of prison.  Some co-workers come to her aid and Craig is thrown out of the store, and as they continue working their overnight shift of markdowns and restocking, they're locked inside and slaughtered one by one, and the natural assumption is that it's Craig.


The grocery store setting is pretty effective overall, and Spiegel does a great job with darkness, shadows, reflections, and so on.  I really liked the effect of blood dripping on the light bulb of an overturned lamp giving the room a blood red glow.  Or the way the killer finds out where Jennifer is hiding.  Spiegel is at his best in these stylish and relatively subtle scenes, but really stumbles when he relies far too much on Raimi-esque visual trickery.  He uses it less as the film progresses, which helps a lot, but early on until maybe 2/3 of the way through, there's just too many wacky POV shots from inside shopping carts, inside telephones, from the floor aiming up as a broom passes over, or through wine bottles.  It's amusing once or twice, but by the 25th time, it wears out its welcome.  Spiegel shows a lot of promise here when he's not trying to be Sam Raimi, and who knows?  Maybe Raimi used a lot of Spiegel's ideas.  At any rate, Spiegel has remained a known and loved figure in cult horror circles, primarily for his EVIL DEAD II work, but his directing career never took off.  He's only directed sporadically since INTRUDER, most recently the dismal HOSTEL PART III.


Raimi, as well as his brother Ted, co-star in the film, and Bruce Campbell turns up at the very end as a cop. There's also GREEN ACRES co-stars Alvy Moore and Tom Lester as a pair of dumb cops, and legendary Three Stooges foil Emil Sitka as a grumpy customer who's in the film long enough to tell a couple "Hold hands, you lovebirds!"  None of the main actors are very good, and heroine Cox is downright terrible.  Perhaps early victim Renee Estevez (Martin Sheen's daughter) should've been given the lead.


As mentioned, Synapse's presentation of INTRUDER is superb.  There's a commentary with Spiegel and producer Lawrence Bender, who went on to produce all of Quentin Tarantino's films (and an early INTRUDER close-up of a box of Fruit Brute makes me wonder how much Bender brought to the table on PULP FICTION, not to mention INTRUDER cast member Burr Steers went on to play Flock of Seagulls in PULP FICTION before abandoning acting to direct bad Zac Efron movies like 17 AGAIN and CHARLIE ST. CLOUD).  There's several featurettes, interviews, workprint footage, cast audition footage, and a brief interview with filmmaker and INTRUDER superfan Vincent Pereira, who tells a great story about writing an angry letter to Fangoria about the cut VHS release only to get a package sometime later with Spiegel's return address, containing a VHS tape of the uncensored INTRUDER.


Is INTRUDER a lost classic?  No, not really.  But it's an enjoyable, blood-soaked slasher flick with moments of truly inspired, creative filmmaking.  I just wish Spiegel had spent more time crafting a unique style that we see fleeting glimpses of here instead of mimicking Raimi's EVIL DEAD/EVIL DEAD II moves.

HOSTEL PART III (2011)

HOSTEL PART III
(US - 2011)  Directed by Scott Spiegel.  Written by Michael Weiss.  Cast: Kip Pardue, Brian Hallisay, Thomas Kretschmann, John Hensley, Chris Coy, Zulay Henao, Sarah Habel, Kelly Thiebaud, Skyler Stone.  88 mins.  Unrated.


And now the HOSTEL franchise gets demoted to the world of straight-to-DVD, several years after the torture porn subgenre has faded to little more than a horror footnote.  I didn't mind the first HOSTEL, but I have to give it up for HOSTEL PART II, with its affectionate homages to 1970s Eurocult classics like TORSO and NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS, and cameos by the likes of Ruggero Deodato, Luc Merenda, and Edwige Fenech.  PART II had a lot more going on than one might've thought, and it works just fine as a standalone feature.  Eli Roth makes it very easy to find Eli Roth annoying, especially now that he's firmly ensconced in the Quentin Tarantino posse, and much like his hero, feels the need to be a terrible actor.  But Roth brought his A-game to HOSTEL PART II, and if he has a masterpiece, that's it.

As expected, Roth has nothing to do with HOSTEL PART III other than a cursory "Based on characters created by..." credit.  Directing chores have been farmed out to HOSTEL co-producer and longtime cult-movie fixture Scott Spiegel, who gets a lifetime pass for co-writing EVIL DEAD II, but really hasn't had much success otherwise.  He wrote and directed 1989's maniac-loose-in-a-grocery-store cult classic INTRUDER, co-wrote the much-maligned 1990 Clint Eastwood-Charlie Sheen vehicle THE ROOKIE, and later directed the straight-to-video FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 2: TEXAS BLOOD MONEY (1999), while getting bit parts in most of his buddy Sam Raimi's movies and moderating assorted DVD commentary tracks.   Spiegel and writer Michael Weiss (himself no stranger to DTV sequels, having written US SEALS 2, I'LL ALWAYS KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, and THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT 2 among others) have fashioned HOSTEL PART III as essentially a torture porn version of THE HANGOVER.  Groom-to-be Scott (Brian Hallisay) is taken to Vegas by best man Carter (Kip Pardue), who used to go out with Scott's fiancee (Kelly Thiebaud).  In Vegas, they meet up with two other buddies--sensitive, disabled Justin (John Hensley), and the obnoxious, loathsome Mike (Skyler Stone), who never stops bitching that his wife has put on 30 lbs since they got married.  It isn't long before Mike disappears with an escort and Scott is drugged, and the next morning, no one knows what happened or where Mike is.  Any chance that all roads lead to a secret Elite Hunting facility where filthy rich gamblers place bets on how much torture an unwilling subject can withstand?

Of course, there's a twist which you'll see coming long before the other characters do, and the gore is plentiful (though not as over-the-top as you might imagine).  But it's all just so tired and stale.  Spiegel is a competent enough director, and might've been able to fashion something if the writing had been a little better.  Weiss' lazy script basically has characters yelling "What the fuck?!" and "You sick fuck!" over and over, and it takes less than ten minutes for someone to say "What happens in Vegas..."  Come on!

The Vegas exteriors look to be second-unit work, as most of the film was shot in Detroit, of all places (Spiegel, like his friends Raimi and Bruce Campbell, comes from the Detroit area).  The Elite Hunting headquarters is played by the imposing Michigan Central Station, a decrepit, vacant landmark visible from I-75 that looks as if the intro to Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" should be played in its vicinity 24/7.  In this shot from the climax of HOSTEL PART III (I could post a spoiler warning, but do you really care?), the famed structure is engulfed in what appear to be extremely unconvincing CGI flames of an almost Sega Genesis-level quality.

As for the rest of the cast, there's no one of note other than Thomas Kretschmann as the sinister head of Elite's Vegas operation.  Kretschmann, one of those journeyman actors who has the ability to bounce from serious, important films like THE PIANIST and DOWNFALL to drek like SUPERBABIES: BABY GENIUSES 2 and KARATE DOG, often in the same year, has little to do in a role that Julian Sands could've played in his sleep.

I imagine the HOSTEL franchise will go the way of HELLRAISER, and we'll get a series of unrelated, increasingly poor sequels that do nothing but cash in on a brand name and give a slumming name actor a fast paycheck.  In that case, I can only hope that the inevitable HOSTEL PART IV gives us guest villain Val Kilmer.  Otherwise, count me out.