Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell have had quite the run together over the years. After meeting in high school and becoming fast friends, the pair collaborated on the successful cult-classic cabin horror film The Evil Dead (1981). After that initial success, they were able to complete a trilogy with Evil Dead 2 (1987) and Army of Darkness (1992). Many years later, they were even able to spin the movie franchise off into a premium cable TV show, Ash vs. Evil Dead (2015-2018). Eagle-eyed fans will also note that Bruce Campbell has appeared in cameo roles in almost all of Sam Raimi’s films, everything from Crimewave (1985), to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022). Even the most hardcore Raimi/Campbell fans, however, may have overlooked one hidden gem: Intruder (1985).
Another classmate and friend of Campbell and Raimi’s was an aspiring filmmaker named Scott Spiegel, who co-wrote Evil Dead II with Raimi. For his own directorial debut, Spiegel made a film called Intruder, following a killing spree inside a grocery store. After this film, Spiegel had an interesting, somewhat fraught career. He famously moved to L.A. with Raimi and lived in a house with aspiring actresses Holly Hunter and Frances McDormand, as well as future writers/directors Joel and Ethan Coen. Spiegel was friends with Quentin Tarantino in the late ’80s and even helped him get his first Hollywood meetings. Soon after, he was hired by Bob Weinstein to direct From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money, and eventually formed a production company with Eli Roth, at which he helped produce the Hostel trilogy.
Intruder was his first major effort, and he was able to get his best buddies involved, as well as work with future legends like makeup artist Greg Nicotero. Raimi plays Randy, the deli counter butcher, and Campbell comes in at the end of the film as a local cop. With the rapid proliferation of slasher films in the ’80s, many gems have slipped through the cracks over the years, and this is certainly one of them.
Lost in the Supermarket
Empire Pictures
What makes the film truly unique, especially for the time, is its commitment to staying in one location the entire time. It’s likely that this decision was made to save money, but it also gave the film a unique hook at the time. Frank Darabont probably did it best with the modern horror classic, The Mist (2007), but Spiegel can always say he did it first. The story follows a lively cast of characters working the night shift at the store: cashiers Linda (Renee Estevez) and Jennifer (Elizabeth Cox), store owners Bill (Dan Hicks) and Danny (Eugene Glazer), produce guy Joe (Ted Raimi), Randy the butcher (Sam Raimi), and shelf stockers Bub (Burr Steers), Tim (Craig Stark), and Dave (Billy Marti). Drama ensues almost immediately when a greaser named Craig (David Byrnes) – Jennifer’s ex-boyfriend – shows up. He’s fresh out of prison and wants Jennifer to take him back, but she won’t have it. He’s a violent creep, and she doesn’t want anything to do with him, but Craig won’t take no for an answer.
As a conflict ensues, Linda presses the alarm underneath the register, alerting the owners in the back to trouble. Bill runs in and breaks up and tries to remove Craig from the store, and a fight breaks out. Craig manages to slip away and hides in the back of the store. Before long, they’re able to track him down and throw him out. After the drama calms down for a beat, the store owners share a troubling revelation: the store will soon be going out of business. Because of that, the stockers will need to mark down every item in the store before the end of the shift. They buckle in for a long night: Randy gets back to chopping meat, Joe gets back to his produce, and Craig slinks around outside the building like a creep. Shortly thereafter, different staff members start to go missing. Before long, Jennifer is the last one alive.
He Died Doing What He Loved Most
Like many low budget slashers of the era, the main emphasis of Intruder was the stylized gore. The effects were designed by Greg Nicotero, a protegé of the legendary Tom Savini, who would go on to work for nearly every major horror franchise. Many of the main characters meet a messy fate in the film, and most of the fun is in the comedy of how they go. Joe the produce guy, for example, is frequently seen chopping up produce with a big butcher’s knife throughout the film while jamming out to music on his headphones. When the mysterious killer comes for him, Joe is so lost in his music and chopping watermelons that he doesn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. In a quick flash, the killer slices through Joe’s skull just like a piece of fruit. When the killer comes for Randy the butcher, he sneaks up and hoists Randy on a meathook, severing his brain stem and killing him almost instantly. When the store co-owner Danny meets his fate, he’s impaled by a receipt spike – the small metal device used in restaurants to track daily orders – straight through the eye socket. In earlier scenes, Danny was seen obsessively poring through invoices, obsessing over the financials.
In each of these grisly deaths, the characters are shown dying in a way directly related to how they lived. These details are fun icing on the cake, but the practical effects themselves are of course the real treat. When Danny dies, we see a replica head shoved down onto the receipt spike. When Dave the stocker dies, he’s stabbed in the stomach while standing next to a palette of beer, causing blood to spray out of his front side, and beer to spray out of his backside. And when Pip the other stocker dies, he gets his head crushed in by a hydraulic press, sending bloody latex and goo spraying in every direction. Ted’s death is probably the most spectacular: the killer uses a table saw to cut Tim’s head in half, width-wise, his mouth stuck open in a horrific scream. It’s unclear why these power tools are set up in the back of the store – maybe the hydraulic press is a box crusher? But this movie is not in the business of answering logistical questions; it’s in the business of red goo, and lots of it.
A Blood-Soaked Launching Pad
Luckily, there’s a fun twist in the third act that shakes things up a bit, even if it’s not an entirely surprising one. And Jennifer ends up getting out alive, solidifying her place as a sort of final girl like Laurie Strode in Halloween (1978) or Sally Hardesty in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). And finally, Campbell shows up, playing Officer Howard, a small town cop who’s at this point very late to the party. Although Campbell and Raimi don’t exactly have any scenes together, the film is a fun late ’80s collaboration between the two in a way, and a fun wrinkle in their now decades-long partnership. The other cop in the end is played by Lawrence Bender, who co-wrote the film with Spiegel, and went on to have an illustrious career in Hollywood. He became one of Tarantino’s go-to producers, working on everything from Pulp Fiction (1994) to Inglorious Basterds (2009). In that sense, the film was a benchmark along the way for a bevy of talented filmmakers. And like many low-budget horrors of the era, it’s worth revisiting for the gory kills alone.
