Did you know...

 Did you know...

This past September when I was staffing HorrorHound, I was lucky enough to meet the ever so talented Rob Kurtzman. Rob was once part of K.N.B, the guys behind many amazing effects for the last twenty-five years or so. While chatting it up with Rob, I pulled out my Intruder blu-ray and as Rob was nice enough to sign it for me, I had to ask him a question that had been bugging me ever since I first watched the movie.

In the scene after Jennifer Ross discovers Randy (Sam Raimi) she is chased by the unseen killer and tries to hide in the meat locker only to find that the killer hiding behind her. Racing out, she slams the door on the killer's hand and tries to slam it shut. Thinking fast she grabs into Randy's corpse which is hanging from a meat hook and slams his body against the door.

This scene always bothered me. I knew the movie was very low budget, but what I wanted to know was...is that really Sam Raimi being pulled back and slammed into the door? I watched this movie a million times, and in the new beautiful HD transfer, you can clearly see Sam hanging on that hook, being slammed backwards. What always got me was first how realistic it looked, and how hard poor Jennifer is slamming him backwards. So I asked Rob if they had made a body cast of Sam, or if they had really used him for that scene.

He said of course they used him. In fact they casted his head for a more graphic close up of the hook going into his neck/chin. I've seen these deleted footage and believe it or not I'm glad they didn't go with this shot. I think for this one scene the less you saw the better, in fact the sound effect of Sam choking on his own blood and then the payoff shot of him hanging there is golden. But for the scene I had in question, Rob said since they were on such a low budget they made a harness like a bicycle seat and Sam just sat up on it creating the illusion he was swinging up in the air. After being strapped me, he fitted his chin on top of the cut piece of fake hook to rest onto it making it look as though all his weight was on top of it and once the cameras rolled they made it look as if he was being slammed backwards.

Movie magic!