Sorry, this movie sucks

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Roger Corman oftentimes would use a big budget film as a template for his B movie. Jaws was one of the films he would do, but the film that seemed to bring out some of his more entertaining films during the 70's, 80's and 90's. This one had its moments, but not as good as "Galaxy of Terror" and "Forbidden World". It has some good effects, some good deaths and a decent enough for a plot like this. The main problem is the pacing. One minute everyone is alive, the next we are quickly down to the last two! There are also problems with the plot as there are several things in it that kind of do not work. The cast is okay, a lot better than a film with a similar theme, "Xtro 2". In that one we are stuck with a lead in Jan-Michael Vincent who is seemingly drunk! 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. In this world, strange monsters the characters refer to as gargoyles...why are said beasts roaming the world now? Don't ask me, I don't have a clue. There really is no explanation as to why these things exist. Well, there are people at an underground facility that is kind of studying the things, or finding a cure or something...not sure on this either, but two of them are topside trying to find food and stuff and are killed by something. A man, along with his dog, Butch...Butch Stevens go to see what happened along with this girl and find them dead and find what appears to be a small human colony that was living in a cave. They locate a survivor and bring her back to the facility, but she turns out to be pregnant and it turns out to be a monster and thus it begins to attack the members of the facility! Thus, Butch Stevens and his buddy try to fight off said beast and try to survive the terrible onslaught! One of the main problems I found with this film is the pacing. 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! Another problem is the plot...there are portions that do not make any sense. Like, why they are so desperate for food? There is not that many of them and the facility they are in is four levels, didn't anyone think of heavily stocking it with food? Also, it is not like there was a nuclear war, there are animals aplenty outside. There is also the strange lack of weapons. The main guy has a crossbow, which considering the effectiveness is more trouble carrying around than it is worth. When the monster attacks they have to rig weapons together, once again, four levels, no one thought to bring anything with a bit of punch to it? I mean, there are evil gargoyles taking over the world and no one brought an assault shotgun or machine gun? So, the film is not bad and is enjoyable for the most part. They really needed to spread the deaths of the team a bit more as one of the reasons one watches a film like this is to see the deaths, so when you have them so close together it kind of makes the last portion of the film a bit more bland than it would have been. Still, there was a good monster exploding from belly scene and a cool scene with a fan too! Of course, even with all the shortcomings one will enjoy Butch Stevens performance!

Well if you are going to make a no-budget B-movie it is nice to have a cast committed to their roles, willing to put forth decent performances. 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). Oh, but that really isn't the problem for the small Mojave Lab crew holed up in the installation. 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). During a surgical removal operation, the monster escapes into the ventilation shaft, leaving the crew concerned about their safety because its growth rate is also abnormal. Multi-leveled, the installation has several places to hide and it will be up to a coordinated, intricately planned hunt for the creature if the crew is to find and kill it. Sound familiar? Even after ten years, the inspiration of Alien continues to reverberate into the later 80s (and 90s). 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. Several are downed in quick order due to neck flesh wounds by the creature's aforementioned claws. 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. Andreeff, I thought, was really good during her limited contribution to the film, and her plight/fate truly saddened me. She has an almost angelic quality to her. 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. Sealing the ventilation ducts is one option, clever use of high frequency sound inspired by Stevens' dog whistle, and survival techniques right out of Rambo 101 are also options tried by Stevens and Treas, hoping that something might stop it from adding them to its death list. 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. And those monster fetus designs and neck flesh wounds are properly grotesque. 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. Notz hasn't had a lucrative directorial career, but I did enjoy his Watchers II. Stevens, I thought, actually doesn't make too bad a hero and has the looks for the role. Treas gets to be heroine at times and come to Stevens' rescue even, so I imagine she had a blast in her role (she has an inspired line, "I'm a doctor, not an engineer."). An obvious criticism will be that this film doesn't have one original idea, but I never felt it was designed to be anything more than a cash-in sci-fi actioner mimicking other popular flicks from the past.

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. Similarities include (but are not limited to: a homemade flamethrower, a chest-bursting monster, lots of drool, a pair of engineers- one black, one white, an aging male captain who is somewhat heroic, a tense scene in something resembling air ducts, Creature reproduction includes humans, and a pet that is orphaned when its owner is killed.The most obvious ripoff is the scene when they are searching a storage room (cargo bay) for the creature. 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.

This movie is a direct cross of Alien and The Beast Within. Alien, a great Sci-Fi flick, had the birth and rapid growing which was poorly repeated in this flick. 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. They took two good movies and made one pretty bad one. The low budget definitely didn't help. The "Gargoyle" reminded me of Godzilla. A rubbery suit that was too big for the guy wearing it. Water, or some sort of goo/liquid sprayed on the suit would have helped - looked too dry. I will give it 1 star for gore though.