Somewhere near Antarctica a team of drillers has been on an oil rig owned by the Zortron Corporation for the last 55 days. The head of the rig is the “tool pusher”, Jake Nevins (Chad Everett). The crew has been drilling to depths never accomplished before by any other drilling company, so far, they haven’t found any oil. A couple accidents have caused the team to be short two people. A helicopter arrives bring Colette (Jennifer Warren) and Harry (James Hayden).
On the rig is geologist, Scott (Joseph Bottoms). His job is to take soil and rock samples for analysis. At over 19,500 feet samples are extracted from the “shaker”. When Phil (Matt Craven) takes the samples out he is attacked by a lamprey shaped creature. The creature is extracted and disposed of, but not before Phil has been bitten. Phil is taken to the infirmary but ends up dying. They assume that the creature injected some kind of poison into Phil.
Meanwhile, Scott is analyzing the rocks. Sam (Paul Larsson) arrives to fix the heat lamps in the lab. In the process he touches one of the rocks. A few of the rocks have pointed edges. Sam pricks his finger and draws blood. Sam is the next to get infected. The rocks turn out to be eggs from some prehistoric creature. When Scott puts them in a climate-controlled container they hatch.
“The Intruder Within” was released in 1981 and was directed by Peter Carter. It is an American made for television science fiction horror film shown as an ABC Friday Night Movie.
The exteriors were filmed on a real oil rig, however, instead of a rig near Antarctica the filmmakers used one owned by the Underwater Gas Developers of Port Colborne, Ontario, Canada on Lake Erie. The movie was shot in November and December which is an iffy time for outdoor filming. Whenever the weather cleared filming had to stop since the lights from Buffalo, New York could be seen in the distance. Interior shots were done at an empty grocery store.
The movie ended up being a whole lot better than I expected. It is a TV movie so there isn’t a lot of blood, guts or gore but it does have some really decent performances, a lot of suspense and a goopy looking monster. The monster doesn’t show up until the very end but there are some decent chest-burster things here and there. There is also a rape where the rapist is an infected person but since this is a TV movie, no one takes their clothes off. I did have an issue with the sexually permissive woman on the rig being the one that gets raped.
The explanation of where these creatures came from is a little out there. It is suggested that they are some kind of missing link that went into hibernation millions of years ago due to some cataclysmic event. Zortron is aware of them and is trying to bring them back to life. Not the best theory, but not all that different from “Alien” 1979. In fact, there are a lot of similarities to James Cameron’s blockbuster. Since the movie was shot only a year after “Alien”, I’m not sure how that happened. Despite all the similarities, or perhaps because of them, the movie was actually really enjoyable.