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Workers on the Zortron 101 oil rig bring up an unusual discovery from deep beneath the ocean floor. A deadly incident ensues, and a crewmember's gloomy prophecy seems to come true. Then, the real terror begins.

THE INTRUDER WITHIN is a well-realized, made-for-TV horror / monster movie. Around this time, many movies were coming out trying to capture the atmosphere of paranoia of John Carpenter's THE THING, and / or the visceral, killer creature horror of Ridley Scott's ALIEN. Both of these classics had that sense of being closed-in and isolated. This movie uses that to great effect. It combines these elements without being overly derivative. There are similarities, especially the ALIEN-like creature, but that doesn't ruin things. This movie is still far better than any of the other rip-offs.

The team of roughnecks are believable, led by Jake (Chad Everett).

Back to the monster itself. It's a superb man-in-a-rubber-suit creation, especially considering the confines of telefilms of its era.

Loads of creepy fun throughout its running time...

Ridley Scott's magnificent Sci-Fi/horror classic "Alien" spawned (pun intended) a massive amount of rip-offs, most of which are cheesy, sleazy and excessively gory B-movies like "Creature", "Xtro", "Forbidden World" and "Inseminoid". The 1981 "The Intruder Within" is also a blatant "Alien" rip- off, but considering this is a low-budgeted and made for TV production, you shouldn't expect to see any outrageous bloodshed or flamboyant special effects here. Instead, the film relies almost entirely on its fairly unique setting of a highly secluded oil rig somewhere in the middle of a not specifically mentioned ocean (and even if it was specifically mentioned, I must have missed it). The crew of an oil rig of the Zoltran Company is drilling at a very unusual place, and Chief Jake Nevins is beginning to suspect that something isn't kosher. Personally I think it's their own damn fault, because who would want to work for a company with such a sinister name as "Zoltran"? You just know that they're up to no good! Anyways, the geographical engineer on board recovers a few odd and nasty eggs from the sea and a couple of poor suckers die in mysterious circumstances. Turns out Zoltran is looking for a monstrous species that already exterminated humanity once before, millions and millions of years ago, and now they found it! "The Intruder Within" is an admirable effort to bring an atmosphere- driven monster flick, but most of the script is dull and predictable. There are a couple of noteworthy moments of tension, for example the moody opening credits, and the cast members do whatever they can. Deep sea monsters, whether alien or earthly, are a rather unusual topic for TV-movies and director Peter Carter also tries hard to make his film like a regular feature, but many aspects (like music and editing) quickly reveal the television trademarks. Naturally the creature itself doesn't appear on screen until very late in the film, supposedly because it isn't fully grown yet, but even when it briefly and vaguely appears it's all too obviously a crew-member is a cheap rubber suit. Okay entertainment for monster-movie fanatics, but passable for everyone else.

Here are the parallels: Blue collar workers aboard an isolated company oil rig (fuel-refining space ship) stumble upon several prehistoric (alien) eggs that spawn powerful and ferocious creatures with an unusually rapid growth rate, one of which "impregnates" a female (male) member of the rigging crew who has a creature burst out of her (his) stomach...all under the watchful eye of a treacherous company geologist (science officer).

Unbelievable.

I'm shocked nobody got slapped with a lawsuit for this one.

Still, the oil-rig setting is inventive and most of the performances are half-decent, as is some of the dialogue. But the action and suspense (what little there is of both) show up in fits and starts... and this TV movie was obviously hindered by too many budgetary and content restrictions to make any kind of an impact.

Another in a long line of attempts to cash in on the success of the film Alien, this one held my interest maybe two-thirds of the way through, but unfortunately then gets too cheap and silly. I kind of liked the premise, workers on an isolated oil platform digging up an ancient lifeform from deep beneath the ocean floor, then of course they find themselves at its mercy like any respectable monster. But when all's said and done it just follows the same old tired formula, with sacrificial good guys and bad guys, and doesn't have the monster FX to back it up in the climax. Not as bad as most other clones (which is not saying much), but still not worth getting excited over. I gave it a 4.

Due my reassessment process of my movies which I had watch in my teenager years it was already scheduled, a hard to find picture, so I've to call our friend Youtube and bingo, it was there on average print with dubbed version in Portuguese, best impossible quite sure and for nostalgic reason I went for to my night session.

At oil rig nearby Antartica the crew are drilling very deeply when came up an Alien specimen from ancient ages, the rest is too predictable, the casting is enough good for this little Sci-Fi-Horror flick as Chad Everett, Jennifer Warren, Rockne Tarkington, Joseph Bottoms and Matt Clark among others.

Thanks for reading.

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First watch: 1986 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-Youtube / Rating: 5.5.