INTRUDER

At an American suburban supermarket, the shutters are being lowered for the nightly closure when a young man approaches the cashier with hostile intentions: it's Craig, the cashier's ex-boyfriend, just released from prison. After being thrown out of the store by the clerks, Craig swears revenge and lurks outside the building. Shortly after the incident, the store owner announces to the employees that he has sold the business and that they will all soon be laid off. From that moment on, the supermarket employees are one by one slaughtered by a mysterious killer. It was 1989, the 1980s were giving way to a new decade; the horror cinema had said it all, in every way. Yet a group of friends already known in the horror scene of those times decided to try their hand at the slasher movie, perhaps the most overdone of the subgenres, which had behind it box-office smash hits like "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th." The group of friends in question is made up of the award-winning team of "Evil Dead": Scott Spiegel as director, Sam and Ted Raimi as actors and also a cameo by Bruce Campbell; in short, all names that horror fans have learned to know and appreciate. Initially "Intruder" was released in Italy with the title "Terrore senza volto" and after being unavailable for many years, it is re-edited on DVD with the original title. This film appears extremely simple in the construction of the story, which includes all the classic clichés of the genre; however, in this case, the lack of originality is compensated by a whole series of factors that elevate this film far above the mass of niche (and non) slashers of that period, thanks to a professional staging and the high gore and splatter rate present. Scott Spiegel is a skilled director; the use of unusual shots and whirling tracking shots manage to emphasize the completely personal (but much is owed to friend Sam Raimi) and frenetic style of the director, capable of giving rhythm to the story even in moments of stasis, thanks to his technical oddities, which he will later make a trademark in "From Dusk Till Dawn 2." The screenplay by Spiegel himself, in collaboration with the Tarantino-esque Lawrence Bender, although very simple, works well and even manages to surprise with an out-of-the-ordinary ending. The cast is composed, then, of well-known faces in the horror scene: in addition to the protagonist Elizabeth Cox ("Dimensione Terrore"), Sam Raimi appears as the butcher Randy, Ted Raimi as the worker Joe and also Bruce Campbell in a tasty cameo as a clumsy policeman. But the real strong point of "Intruder" are the extremely violent murder scenes, which, thanks to the splatter effects curated by specialists Kurtzman, Nicotero, Berger (creators of the best special effects for 1980s and 1990s horror), appear among the most original and terrifying ever seen in a slasher movie: special mention goes to the guy whose face is cut in half horizontally with an electric saw. So an example of good B-movie cinema, technically valid and fun in the extraordinary participation of so many horror darlings. Highly recommended for those who like a generous sprinkle of blood in the slasher recipe.