The Terror Within
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Movie Reviews of The Terror Within
Movie Review: STAY 4 Stars
Group of scientists need to stay below ground. Afew went up to see what happen to their crew. Instead they found a female, not infected. But is pregnent with a monster. Underground becomes hell for all. Roder Corman classic that should be viewed. Nice gore, and decent acting. Not a bad movie for those late night watch.Movie Review: Pretty good horror flick from Roger Coreman
Summary: 4 Stars
This is worth at least 4 stars. When survivors of a worldwide plague, rescue a lone woman,they soon find out a shocking discovery:she's pregnant...and it's not a human! Now they must fight a desperate deadly battle against the ever-growing, ever bolder mutant. It stars George Kennedy and Andrew Stevens.Movie Review: Corman rips off Alien...AGAIN!
Summary: 3 Stars
One thing you can say about Roger Corman: he's consistent. "Consistent" meaning his films always turn a profit (supposedly). "Consistent" also means that a viewer sitting down to a watch a Corman flick will consistently find the film in question larded with enough cheese to clog an elephant's arteries. You will see cheesy acting, cheesy special effects, and cheesy plots. Depending on the type of genre, you'll also find plenty of gory mayhem, beautiful babes, and nudity from the aforementioned beautiful babes. That's Roger Corman in a nutshell. Oh wait, I almost forgot; he's also the biggest ripoff artist in Hollywood history. Any film that has hit the big time in the last forty years invariably sees Roger Corman making a similar flick in an effort to cash in on the more successful offering. For example, when "Jaws" hit the jackpot back in the 1970s, Corman followed up with several pictures capitalizing on monsters run amok. When the car movie craze swept America in the late 1970s, Roger quickly jumped aboard by releasing films focusing on cars. "Star Wars" saw our man releasing several science fiction films strongly resembling, well, "Star Wars". That's Corman for you. Love him or leave him.
"The Terror Within" is a ripoff of "Alien," except when it isn't. Set in a post-apocalyptic future after a biological catastrophe wiped out much of the world's population, a group of scientists feverishly works to find an antidote in an underground research facility. Led by the ponderous Hal (George Kennedy), the group really believes they can save the world. The jumpsuits they wear while they lumber about the laboratory only prove this commitment. Anyway, we've got a big cast to work with here. Aside from the ponderous Hal, we meet Sue (Starr Andreeff), Linda (Terri Treas), David (Andrew Stevens), Andre (John Lafayette), Neil (Tommy Hinkley), Michael (Joseph Hardin), and John (Al Guarino). Whew! Are we seeing a movie or sitting down to watch a ballgame? I haven't seen a cast list this huge since I watched "Triumph of the Will". My notes mention another character, Karen (Yvonne Saa), but I'm pretty sure she joins the previously mentioned scientists when an event loaded with serious consequences occurs on the surface of the earth that, wouldn't you know it, happens to sit right near the facility. Isn't that how it always is in movies? Whatever needs to happen HAPPENS right there in front of you!
The lady in question surprises our little band of scientists in two significant ways. One, they find her stumbling around outside, seemingly unaffected by the aforementioned plague that's wiped out nearly everyone else. Hmmm. Two, she's running from an encounter with a gargoyle. Now that's important to note because "gargoyles," it seems, are mutant monsters created by the plague. "But I thought you said almost everyone died," you might ask. You're right. I did say that in a sense. What I actually wrote was, "...wiped out MUCH of the world's population." There were survivors, I guess, and they turned into gargoyles that hunt down the other surviving humans. You know--the one's that aren't gargoyles. Anybody else's head starting to hurt? Well, it turns out the outsider carries a baby thanks to the gargoyle's tender mercies. What happens next comes as no surprise to fans of "Alien". Yep, it's time for an exploding body cavity and a rampaging beastie using the ventilation system to creep about the laboratory killing our cast. Hijinks ensue. For that matter, so does hilarity. Call it hijinkarity. It's not all bad, though. Lots of people die in really stupid ways when the stupid monster attacks.
Where to start with the atrocity that is "The Terror Within"? I'll say Terri Treas is hot. She's a Corman regular that usually elevates any movie she appears in. She even adds a little charm to this number. Then there's George Kennedy and Andrew Stevens. Both men rate as good actors, and they do well with what they've got to work with here, but it's unintentionally hilarious to see them take this stuff so seriously. What else? Oh, I actually got a charge out of Andre and Neil, whose roles require them to play class clowns. Not that anything they say is actually funny, mind you, but rather so appallingly ridiculous that that fabled "unintentional hilarity" enters the picture again. Speaking of things that aren't supposed to be funny, take a gander at the monster. It's nice to see Corman cutting costs by farming out the special effects to a team composed of kindergartners using foam rubber and playdoh. The gargoyle/human hybrid in "The Terror Within" achieves such heights of cheesy cheesiness that I immediately had to clear my arteries with a pipe cleaner after the credits rolled. Ouch! If you like cheese like I like cheese, "The Terror Within" is for you!
The House of Corman gives "The Terror Within" a decidedly lackluster DVD release. We get a few trailers for other Corman flicks, bios on a few of the people involved in the film, and a preview for the movie. Picture and audio quality suffers; we get a full screen transfer full of speckling and washed out colors, and the audio isn't impressive when you've got a room full of speakers and almost nothing coming out of them! Surprisingly, Corman issued a sequel called, oddly enough, "The Terror Within 2" a year or so later. I haven't seen that one, not yet anyway, but it's probably not going to surpass its predecessor in quality. Having dogged on the film for four paragraphs, I must say that I actually enjoyed the movie. Yeah, most of the technical aspects tank, but it's a lot of fun to turn the old brain off and sit in front of this clunker for ninety minutes. I'll give "The Terror Within" three stars.
Movie Review: Halfway Decent "Alien" Knockoff
Summary: 3 Stars
The only real drawback to this science fiction monster movie is that it is just a little too close to the classic movie "Alien." Survivors from an underground laboratory rescue a woman from the outside world after an experiment goes awry and kills most of mankind, with the exception of mutated creatures that bear some semblance to the creatures that appeared in the 1984 monster movie "C.H.U.D.," without the glowing eyeballs. It seems that the monsters in this movie also desperately needed an orthodontist.
Now that the woman is within the secure facility, the survivors learn that she is pregnant. The baby turns out to be (surprise!) a mutated creature, and it promptly munches on the hand of the lady trying to extract it. In a scene copied directly from "Alien," the critter looks around and heads for the ventilator shafts. This movie does explicitly explain that the baby critter is growing at a phenomenal rate, and you had to guess that in "Alien."
The underground survivors, led by Hal (George Kennedy, "Airport," "Charade," the original, and better, "Flight of the Phoenix" and dozens more television and movie appearances), arm themselves with flame throwers and laser and try, vainly, to track the creature down and kill it. This creature has a marvelous ability to heal itself even after being burned, hacked and beaten, so it is very difficult to kill.
In spite of the seemingly direct copying of the essential elements of "Alien," including the level by level searching for the creature, the flamethrowers, and the use of the ventilation shafts by the creature, this movie is a good watch. The appearances of the creature were predictable, but the creature was nicely done. The movie refuses to allow its low budget prevent it from being an entertaining movie. Essentially, this movie tried hard to be enjoyable.
There is a lot of blood in this movie. Blood tends to squirt and gush quite frequently, so this movie is absolutely not for children. The monster costume was nicely done too; again not for children. However, adults who like bloody monster movies and are willing to forgive a blatant rip-off of "Alien" may find this gory monster movie to be entertaining. I know I did. Enjoy!
Movie Review: Another Corman Classic!...
Summary: 3 Stars
Yes, THE TERROR WITHIN is yet one more ALIEN rip-off. It's set in an underground facility in the desert instead of a ship in deep space, but the basic plot is the same: Hideous creature on the loose kills off the humans one by one. In this movie we get a belly-bursting alien birth scene (sound familiar?), a fetal alien in the air-vents, and a full grown monster (aka: a guy in a rubber suit w/ gnarly dentures) running amok. Andrew Stevens (The Fury) and George Kennedy (Naked Gun) star in this pulse-pounding epic. Well, my pulse didn't actually pound, but I did get a slight headache. Anyway, TTW is a pretty good little movie to watch on a dull day. I was modestly entertained and not once did I want to smash my TV...
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