The Terror Within (1989)

Overrated and overhyped

One of my all time favorites.

Memorable, crazy movie

Excellent but underrated film

I am taking about "The Terror Within, 1989, A Roger Corman Production. Spoiler Alert. I will be talking about the plot, This movie has the iconic George Kennedy as the senior lead. A role well suited to the veteran Sci Fi ace. Here he leads a scientific exploration group in a post apocalyptic world. Along for the ride are the usual staff: From the grunt workers to the top. The cast,:Andrew Stevens as David, Starr Andreeff as Sue, Terri Treas as Linda, and a handful of others, go through their actions in earnest, Imagining themselves, I suppose, in a bigger budget production, where they are not terrorized by a guy in a rubber suit. Lord they do try, The picture looks good, all production values on the mark, the writers have a tendency to repeat sequences, things are done in pairs, search the lower decks, " is the baby human?" let's split up" Don't leave the control room, The flaws are breath taking, The plot takes a "Ten Little Indian" turn by midpoint, I am sorry, so sue me, but the monster on the soundtrack reminded me of the great Supy Sales's, off stage pet, "Black Tooth" Blarh ! So the crew is wiped out by reason of stupidity, The rubber guy got them and they did not even shoot their weapons or blow their whistles, All very entertaining, Take the kids, they won't get the "pregnant part" anyway. Real popcorn thrower. I give it Three out of Five "short of a hoot." Stars

The acting is poor and the story is just as inspired. It's crazy to sit back sometimes and just see how much they ripped off other movies. And not just good movies either. B-Movies. Schlock films. It has it's moments, sure. It's definitely a midnight creature feature. However, it sacrifices good old fashioned exploitation for just lazy film-making. Can you blame it? Everyone has to get paid somehow and these movies were being pressed out a lot.A few moments into this picture and you can start to see the low-budget sleaze oozing through the cracks. The jokes and innuendos are all reminiscent of a Corman Picture. The corner-cutting in editing and sub- par audio are all present too. Not to say that it isn't entertaining. Movies like this usually are. This just isn't a movie that's fit for everyone. You have to be in the mood.

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. The Laser gun looked like something my kids put together when their playing army in the back yard. Of course with all the cast George Kennedy was the movie he must have done it because the director or producer was his brother in-law or something. The Gargoyles were not believable at all I tried to get into the movie the explosions were awesome the story was decent the acting was alright the actors props sucked who ever they paid they need to get their money back. I gave it a 5 only out of respect for Mr. Kennedy.

Okay, you've heard about "so-bad-it's-good" movies before, but this demented little thing plays in an entirely different league. "The Terror Within" is so bad it's ….really, truly freaking abysmally bad! It's a cheesy and minimally plotted 80's earthbound "Alien" imitation and it's produced by Roger Corman, so that ought to give you an immediate idea about the overall quality of this production. You may prepare yourself for the worst, and then still "The Terror Within" will surpass your most cautious expectations. This is one of them films that gives you absolutely no feedback or background about anything that happens before, during and after the main events in the plot. The script even fails to inform what year the events take place in, what kind of company the 6 protagonists work for or how the breed of gargoyles developed itself so rapidly. All we know is that some kind of "accident" wiped out 99% of the earth's population and that the few remaining survivors on the surface are continuously threatened by gargoyle-creatures. Six people in a subterranean laboratory, led by the poor & desperate-for-work George Kennedy, attempt to save what's left of humanity, but they clearly don't have a clue what they're up against. Unaware of the fact that the gargoyles mate with regular females, they take a pregnant girl into their lair and numbly observe how she gives birth (in a sequence shamelessly copied from Ridley Scott's milestone) to a ravenous and fast-growing monster. Now they're all trapped underneath the earth, with two remaining female employees as potential monster-mommies. Admittedly, the plot description for "The Terror Within" doesn't sound half as bad as initially feared, but honestly the film is stuffed with plot-holes the size of the Grand Canyon, laughably inane dialogs, poor acting performances and tiny stupid oddities that are almost too amusing for words. Here's a brief listing of all the crazy stuff occurring in this film (extra spoiler warning). 1)The gargoyles may be tall and strong, but apparently they're quite terrible in the sack. The monster only was a few nanoseconds alone with the girl, but it clearly was more than enough to impregnate her. 2)Actually, the monsters look a bit like an over-sized version of Duckman. 3)The hero (Andrew Stevens) is obviously more upset when his dog gets injured than when his black colleague and even his girlfriend get torn to pieces. 4) Presumably the film is set in the future, but technology appears to have taken a huge step backwards. The characters operate the largest walkie-talkies you've ever seen and the only exit out the subterranean lab is through a ramshackle shed. 5) At a certain point, the remaining survivors try to attack the creature by blowing on a dog whistle. I guess their next move would have been to throw a banana peel in front of its feet. 6)The film probably just took a few days to shoot; still I think George Kennedy had other, more urgent places to go to. Halfway the story his character just vanishes after an idiotic kamikaze run into the creature. Still, you don't actually see him die so you expect him to return at some point. Guess again. Strangely enough, and despite the rather cheesy & tacky monster designs, the killings are pleasingly gruesome and blood-soaked. The aforementioned birth-sequence may be very unoriginal; at least it's suitably repulsive and even mildly shocking. The finale is effective as well, since the gargoyle meets his death in a rather nasty fashion. As if you couldn't guess yourself, "The Terror Within" is an awfully crappy 80's cheeseball, definitely worthy of the Roger Corman label. It could be considered "entertaining", but you'd have to be in the right mood.