The Terror Within

Plot synopsis:
In a post-apocalyptic future, human survivors are fighting a group of mutant monsters they refer to as "Gargoyles".
Two of these survivors Michael and John are out surveying the world after a chemical or biological attack which left a large portion of the population mutated or dead. The survivors are part of the Mojave Lab and have lost contact with their sister Rocky Mountain Lab.
Over the radio Sue and David hear John and Michael fall under attack from the gargoyles while investigating a large group of buzzards. In order to find John and Michael, David and Linda go out of the bunker but find John and Michael dead. They also find a live girl named Karen who they bring back to their bunker.
While under anesthesia Karen gives birth to a gargoyle which gets loose in the bunker. Hal develops a plan to kill the gargoyle in which Andre and Neil fall prey to the gargoyle. The gargoyle then proceeds to wound David and injure his dog Brutus while also kidnapping Sue with the intentions to reproducing with her.
These creatures reproduce quickly by raping human women and impregnating them. The gestation period is short and deadly. The creatures are very strong and able to heal after some wounds such as burning, beating, and electrical shock. They are vulnerable to the high-pitched frequency of a dog whistle (used by a lead character to ward them off).
Sue becomes impregnated by the gargoyle; she later kills herself via drug overdose. Linda and David then hatch a plan to kill the gargoyle by luring him into the ventilation system where he becomes trapped and falls into a running exhaust fan dismembering him. David and Linda re-establish radio contact with the Rocky Mountain Lab and along with Brutus leave the bunker with a high frequency megaphone to brave the outside world. They lie and wait for a number of gargoyles to enter the open bunker and implode it.
Linda and David leave the bunker; it is implied that they are on their way to the Rocky Mountain Lab. Abortion becomes a topic of debate between the humans when one of the characters is raped by one of the creatures; they are unsure if the woman is pregnant by her human partner or the monster.

Tags: violence

Review:
But what else would expect from the likes of Roger Corman?Chemical warfare experiment kills of most of the world's population.
There are a few 'normal' people left like our protagonists (Andrew Stevens, George Kennedy, Teri Treas, etc..) and then there are the gargoyle-like creatures who impregnate female humans in order to procreate their own kind.See, Andrew Stevens & Co. are left inside an underground lab that spared them from the effects of the plague, so in one of their reconnaissance patrols out in the desert, they bring back a wounded human female (Yvonne Saa) to the complex in order to treat her.
It's an ok scene but we've all seen it before.Stevens & Co. then spend the rest of the movie trying to hunt down the creature as they are slowly being killed off one-by-one.
Pretty good although I wish it were more graphic.It looks like Corman & Co. spent a little bit of money on the set design but don't expect any of the fanciest gizmos from STAR WARS or any of the ALIEN sequels.
At least the sets don't look too much like cardboard.Released on DVD the same time as THE NEST (Teri Treas appears in both), you could do a lot worse on a Saturday night.
Enter THE TERROR WITHIN, one of the better ALIEN rip-offs that Corman has made(next ot GALAXY OF TERROR, of course).The story is old, and to discuss it would just waste space, and not surprise anyone.
This is wholesale gore, and there is a little bit(very little) suspense as well.For a post-apocalyptic slant on ALIEN, this one isn't bad..
A Roger Corman quickly produced cheapie that wears its influences proudly, as many elements (character descriptions to lifted sequence ideas) just reek of Ridley Scott's 1979 feature ''Alien''.
Instead of being set in space like that classic, the action takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting due to a chemically induced plague wiping out the majority of the earth's population.
What the story lacks in imagination (as it does draw upon a predictable amalgam) and coherence, it makes up for in durable performances (a likable Andrew Stevens, George Kennedy, John Lafayette, Starr Andreeff and Terri Treas all keeping it straight) and gruesomely tacky splatter (even though it doesn't have much impact in engineering the deaths and tawdry jolts).
The Terror Within (1989) *** (out of 4) Yet another ALIEN clone from producer Roger Corman.
Their good lifestyle takes a turn for the worse when a large monsters gets inside and starts a killing rampage.
THE TERROR WITHIN is in no way, shape or form an original movie but fans of mindless monster movies should really enjoy it as we get a fun cast, a great monster, several gory death scenes and an all around good time.
The film not only has elements of ALIEN but we also gets bits and pieces taken from THE THING and also several very important "moments" from HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP.
It's clear the goal of this film was to deliver an old-fashioned monster movie that you'd see at the drive-in in the 1950s but they took it a step further by adding in the gore and nudity that you'd expect to see in an exploitation film from this era.
I think the most surprising thing is that a monster movie like this could get made and released in 1989 because this type of film pretty much died out at the start of the decade when slashers arrived on the scene.
The cast includes a fun lead performance from the one and only Andrew Stevens and we get nice support from Starr Andreeff, John Lafayette and Oscar-winner George Kennedy who was square in the middle of his exploitation days.
THE TERROR WITHIN isn't a classic but I think it's a very good monster movie that has a lot going for it..
It's impossible to spoil this movie but I hate to mention the many times it blatantly rips-off Alien, a far superior film.
The acting is vastly inferior, along with effects and sets, I'm sure I've seen the same rubber suited creature in at least one other low-budget film.Oh, sorry, I did notice one major difference.
some really cheesy effects at times (the pregnant belly looks pretty bad), but maybe you like cheese.
It is a good and enjoyable film.not the best or great of the lot but still good.the actresses are pretty good but alas none had a long career,which is a curse for actresses working in such B-movies,especially terri treas i just loved her in this movie.but it is good anyway.p.s check out alien screw sue scene..
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.
Stupid thing-that-would-not-die mess has George Kennedy (no idea why he is in this) leading a group of humans who live underground in a post-apocalyptic future.
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.
While performing the operation, the 'baby' tears itself free from the womb in a blatant crib of the chestburster scene from Alien, and scuttles off to the air vents where it quickly grows into a full-sized man in a really bad rubber monster costume.The rest of the movie sees the plucky scientists constructing a flame-thrower and some handy-dandy laser weapons and hunting down the monster, which is keen to get its claws on the female members of the group so that it can impregnate them.
The action that ensues is poorly executed, and completely devoid of suspense and tension, largely thanks to the laughable monster, but also due to unconvincing performances from all involved (I can't really blame them; I imagine that it's hard to look scared when faced with such a silly creature).
The Beast Within (notice the title similarity), which was a decent horror movie for it time, has the same theme of a monster trying to mate with every woman it comes across.
It also never hurts to have the caliber of a go-to character actor like George Kennedy in the cast, either.The integrity of an underground installation is compromised when abnormal humans (nicknamed "gargoyles") who seemed to have developed into monsters due to radioactive fallout thanks to war that wiped out 99% of mankind, find out their entrance (a shack in the middle of the Mojave desert).
Two of the members (the handsome Andrew Stevens and cherubic Starr Andreeff) find a female human survivor of the plague, bring her to the lab, and it is soon discovered that she is pregnant.
The fetus is actually a monster, a victim of the plague, abnormal because of the radioactive effects of the outside atmosphere (it is also possible she was raped by one of the gargoyles).
The Terror Within has a monster fetus "exit" very similar to the infamous chest bursting scene, this time fleeing from the surgical stomach cut by the installation's chief medical officer.
Aimed with a laser (its use is limited to four shots) and a blow torch (yes, quite similar to Alien, also), the weaponry at their disposal requires getting close to the monster.
Soon, the movie becomes a "man in rubber suit" affair with Stevens and company in pursuit of the seemingly indestructible monster that walks upright but has a protruding face and hands with claws that rip flesh in one strike.
The most tragic scene is what happens to Andreeff, who rushes to help her beloved Stevens (they are lovers in the movie), when she is captured and sexually molested by the creature on the rampage.
Terri Treas is also quite good as the doctor who must join forces with Stevens after the monster has wiped out most of the crew and figure out some way to kill the damned thing on the loose.
While it's an obvious rubber suit, I thought the designers done a good job on making the creature as ugly and ferocious as possible.
I admit that I enjoy Alien, Robocop, and Terminator rip-offs, and "The Terror Within" was better than I expected.
Sure, the sets and props, even the rubber suited monster, are meager, but given the budget Thierry Notz had to work with, I found "The Terror Within" rather surprisingly exciting and fun.
Okay, you've heard about "so-bad-it's-good" movies before, but this demented little thing plays in an entirely different league.
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.
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.
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.
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.
2)Actually, the monsters look a bit like an over-sized version of Duckman.
"The Terror Within" is an entertainingly cheesy creature feature.**SPOILERS**On a research mission, Hal, (George Kennedy) David, (Andrew Stevens) Sue, (Starr Andreeff) Andre, (John Lafayette) Linda, (Terri Treas) and Neil, (Tommy Hinkley) begin worrying that their mission should be concluded.
Determining the reason behind it's attacks, the team scours the base for the creature and launches a plan to get rid of it before it is able to kill off the entire crew one-by-one.The Good News: While not a great film, this one here is pretty decent.
The film does move at a pretty nice pace, keeping it between one encounter with the creature at a time and one significant discovery until it's done capitalizing on the previous one.
This really makes it seem like there's no real down-time at all, and by making the creatures' appearance in the film really early works wonders.
The basic premise of the film, several of it's key action and plot-point set-pieces are taken from one singular movie, the creatures' actions are the exact same as another film, and there's a whole series of scenes that come off as being featured in a thousand individual scenes themselves.
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 !
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.
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.
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.It takes place in a future world where most of humanity has been decimated by a chemical experiment that got out of control.
The resulting "gargoyle" that emerges when they try to abort it then proceeds to slaughter the hapless crew one schmuck at a time.To Cormans' credit, the sets look decent, and also giving the look of the movie some degree of quality is the work of cinematographer Rohn Schmidt, who's gone on to big things such as the feature film "The Mist" and the TV series 'The Walking Dead'.
However, the movie does so much cloning of "Alien" as to be somewhat groan inducing, right down to its creation of two comic relief characters (played by John Lafayette and Tommy Hinkley) clearly patterned after Parker and Brett from the '79 film.
It manages to create some suspense, and come up with a somewhat cathartic finale.A committed B movie cast plays this as well as they can, with Oscar winner George Kennedy lending some credibility to the proceedings.
Andrew Stevens (who went on to direct "The Terror Within II") is likable enough, as are lovely ladies Starr Andreeff and Terri Treas.
So good it's bad - buy it if you like those kinds of movies.
The film takes place on Earth in an underground facility called the "Mojave Lab." The crew's mission is to exit the lab and explore the Earth's surface searching for survivors in a future where 99 percent of the human population died off from a virus that they now now have a cure for.In the film's opening two crew members are attached by some vicious mutant creatures they call Gargoyles.
The instant the thing is seen lunging out of its host they resort to a cut away of our hero "David" played by Andrew Stevens looking on from a observation room and exclaims "Oh my God he's in the air vent." They clearly could not show any of that with the special effects set up they had, so they tell us.
A fair share of the action takes place inside the air vents, just like in the Ridley Scott film.
This was so clear to the crew that the costume designer on Terror dressed the "Neil" character played by Tommy Hinkley with a Hawaiian shirt almost identical to the one Harry Dean Stanton wore as "Brett" in Alien.The over all look and tone the film is going for is clearly inspired by it's high budget predecessor.
Even some of weapons the crew uses are the same.The unfortunate thing is the first 34 minutes of The Terror Within is uneventful and does not set up anything that you really need to know in order to understand the film.
They did not have much to work with, the character work was just not there in the script.HOW THEY FELL SHORT:The Gargoyle is an actor in a full body suit and a bulky head piece that only looked good in extreme close ups or in the shadows.
When Andre is attacked by the Gargoyle they assemble a fun series of shots but it ends up making him look like he's standing there for a total of eight seconds waiting to be killed.David realizes the sound of a dog whistle is the Gargoyles only weakness it debilitates him, so they make a tape of it to play back over the speakers so he can hunt it down.
The next seven minutes he is crippled, crawling around and doing everything except simply sounding the dog whistle he has hanging from his neck the whole time.In ClosingIt's goofs like this that lend to the overall charm of the film.
In an attempt to duplicate a space epic like Alien on a budget estimated to be the cost of a new sports car, the film makers of The Terror Within have produced a low rent romp that is SO BAD IT'S GOOD.
Roger Corman oftentimes would use a big budget film as a template for his B movie.
The cast is okay, a lot better than a film with a similar theme, "Xtro 2".
This one features George Kennedy who appears not to want to be in the film, but at least he does not slur his words like Vincent did!The story has the world's population mostly wiped out by some sort of plague.
They have like six main cast members, but as soon as the monster takes out one of them, the others are taken out within a span of ten minutes and we are done to the final two people and watching one get thrown around by the monster just like in the worse film, "Creepazoids".
George's death is rather funny though as he blasts the monster four times with his 'laser' then rushes the beast most likely to expel himself from the film sooner!
The sound acting by the sturdy cast helps a lot: Andrew Stevens as the rugged David, George Kennedy as no-nonsense lab head Hal, Starr Andreeff as the sweet, spunky Sue, Terri Treas as tough, feisty doctor Linds, John LaFayette as the easygoing Andre, and Tommy Hinkley as wisecracking goofball Neil.
I've seen much worse- but at least those movies had the guts to try something new (even though they tanked doing it).The Terror Within is a rip-off of Alien.
Even the camera angles and shot order are similar to Alien.I'd like to give this movie a 2 but there are other movies I'd give a two...and this isn't as bad as those.