The Terror Within

Well, I had a chance to sit down in 2020 to watch the 1989 movie "The Terror Within" for the first time. I had already seen the 1991 sequel "The Terror Within II" and wasn't impressed with that, but still I managed to sit down to watch this first movie as I hadn't already seen it.

"THE TERROR WITHIN" (1989, Notz) may not really be as bad as a 2/10 but that's what it's getting because it's another cheap rip off of 1979's "ALIEN" (Scott) and its monster, the Gargoyle, has a bad case of lockjaw. The actor in the suit has to shake a lot to compensate for the static mouth and it just doesn't work.

Annoyed by the modern zeitgeist drama-queen productions, I am lately on my mission to watch movies of the good old times (everything before 2k). The Terror Within and its successor The Terror Within II are both trashy and cheesy B-movies but entertaining and, last but not least, with some moments of gore here and there.

I'm quite partial to cheesy sci-fi B-movies. I don't expect too much and am quite happy with a rubbery monster, chomping his way through a cast of unknowns.

Long story short, most reviews are accurate unless they say this movie sucks. In which case they don't enjoy movies.

"The Terror Within" is adequate sci-fi / horror, no more and no less. Still, it's about as good as a low budget Roger Corman knockoff could be; it's reasonably well produced (by Corman himself) and directed if mostly predictable and routine stuff.

The opening scene of The Terror Within takes place at the Vasquez Rocks in California, perhaps the most overused location in sci-fi cinema and TV, which gives an idea of just how fresh and innovative this Roger Corman produced Alien rip-off is. The familiar plot sees a group of scientists, survivors of a plague that has all but wiped out humanity, finding a woman in the wilderness surrounding their underground lab complex.

There's a subset of maniacs who want to see movies where women are impregnated by aliens and give messy and brutal birth to them. Trust me, there's no other way Inseminoid and Galaxy of Terror would all come up with the same concept if there wasn't a willing audience for this sort of thing.

George Kennedy is a great well known actor with lots of films to his credit he worked along the greats like John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Burt Lancaster, Lee Marvin and Jimmy Stewart. So it was sad to see him running around in a Post Apocalypse Movie with a laser gun that looked like it was made from PVC pipe from Lowes or Home Depot.