THE TERROR WITHIN (1982)
Tagline: The Time of Man is Over. A New Breed is Born. It Must Mate. It Must Feed. It Must Kill.
(Horror, Gargoyles, Aliens Rip-off With No Aliens) [R]
Don’t worry Sue, I won’t let anything happen to you.
In this one chemical warfare destroys the world and leaves it filled with mostly mutant creatures. The few humans that remain have built an underground complex to survive and survey the land to see if they could eventually return to the surface. On one trip, a small group runs into a woman that is fleeing from what the humans refer to as a “gargoyle”. When they get her back to the complex, they find out she’s pregnant with a “gargoyle” that can reach full maturity in 24 hours. Can Hal and his team survive…THE TERROR WITHIN?
So for decades if you were going to do an alien movie, you just drove out to the desert and bam…” you are on another planet” cinematically. However, while they did film this in the Mohave Desert in CA, and AZ, they decided to be honest with this one and just say “it's earth”. That’s a plus because I am pretty sure not every other planet looks exactly like the Arizona or California desert. While this movie is meant to be a bit of an “ALIEN” rip-off, at least they just had it be here on this planet.
What works in THE TERROR WITHIN are the effects. This is another Roger Corman-produced film and the dude is a cheapskate. This thing is pretty gnarly and the creature is horrifying. There is a good amount of gore in this which really isn’t my thing, but a lot of horror fans will be delighted.
Acting wise George Kennedy started doing some horror flicks in the 80s and does a decent job for the most part. CREEPSHOW 2 and UNINVITED were a couple of them. CREEPSHOW 2 was his best effort, but this role is a lot better than his role in UNIVITED. Starr Andreeff isn’t in this movie a ton, but she is one of the main stars and does a decent job here. She is another actress I consider a bit of an under-the-radar scream queen after making appearances in this movie, GHOULIES II, DANCE OF THE DAMNED, OUT OF THE DARK, and others. We also get a decent performance out of Terri Treas who was mostly known for the “Alien Nation” TV series. Andrew Stevens is okay but not great as David. His biggest claim to fame is being the producer of THE BOONDOCK SAINTS.
Where this thing goes sideways is in that it really doesn’t have a story and has very little character development. It feels like they had an idea and just said…” let’s have a 60-minute monster chase scene and be sure to nullify all of the epic weapons we showed off at the start of the movie”. It also takes a while to really get going.
Overall this thing feels like an unfinished idea with a script that wasn’t really fleshed out. There is a segment before the middle where there is a big monster romp sequence with lots of action, but after that, this thing really fizzles out and turns into a bit of a snoozer.
I have to give THE TERROR WITHIN a 2 out of 7. First off, I am not a fan of over-gore to cover a bad story and I am also not a fan of failing to write a script with any relatable characters. Andre is the smartest person in the room and sadly they killed off his character before this thing really ever took off.
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