If you believe “Alien” is a good science fiction horror film, keep in mind that Roger Cornman loves it far more than you will. “The Terror Within” is one of the numerous films he has made based on the film “Alien.” Some will go so far as to call it a low-budget rip-off, and they would be correct in doing so.
Andrew Stevens plays David, Terri Treas plays Linda, Starr Andreeff plays Sue, and Yvonne Sa plays Karen in the film. It is directed by Thierry Notz and is set in a world where a mutation has resulted in mutated creatures who seek to rule the Earth. To avoid being killed by these creatures, the surviving humans have retired to underground bunkers and do not come up to the surface.
The basic goal of these organisms is to repopulate and increase their numbers. They rape human women in order to force them to bear children. Karen gives birth to a gargoyle, who causes chaos in the underground laboratory and thus sets the events of the novel in motion.
A sequel to the film is also planned, in which we will discover more about David and the mutation’s cause. As David searches for ingredients for an antidote, he falls in love with lusus, a lady who has been impregnated by a gargoyle.
The title “The Terror Within” is quite literal, since it refers to the terror that grows within the womb. Andrew Stevens reprises his role as David in the sequel, alongside Butch, the dog he had in the first film. R. Lee Ermey also has a part, which he plays flawlessly.
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It Wants to Get Out! – The Terror Within (1989)
The movie opens in a dystopian future, where a group of mutant creatures called “Gargoyles” has plagued the world. Humans fight these monsters for their survival.
After a biochemical attack, a significant portion of the human population either died or mutated into these monsters. Two survivors, John and Michael, are part of the ‘Mojave Lab’. However, they’ve lost contact with their sister lab, ‘the Rocky Mountain Lab’. They survey the world and investigate mutant groups.
The two of them investigate a large group of ‘buzzards’, which is basically a type of bird. However, while doing so, they are attacked by the Gargoyles. Sue and David hear the two of them fall under this attack over the radio.
Andrew Stevens, who plays David, starred in a science fiction horror movie called “The Watchers” in 1988, a year before “The Terror Within” was released. The horror make-up and special effects for the creatures in “The Watchers” were similar to that of “The Terror Within”.
Anyway, Sue and David leave their bunker to help rescue John and Michael, but when they find them, they are already dead. Meanwhile, they find another girl, the sister, called Karen. As she was injured, Sue and David brought her back to their bunker.
They put Karen on anesthesia. To make matters worse, Karen gives birth to a gargoyle. This monster gets loose while in the bunker, putting all the people there at jeopardy. One of the guys, Hal, comes up with a plan to take the gargoyle down. But, the execution goes wrong and Neil and Andre become the gargoyle’s prey. The gargoyle then attacks another guy called David and injures his dog, Butch. It then captures Sue and kidnaps her. It needs Sue alive and well because the gargoyle intends to impregnate her.
Gargoyles wish to populate, and being vile creatures they rape human females to impregnate them. This is why Karen was injured and left undead.
The gargoyle impregnates Sue. Naturally, Sue does not wish to birth a gargoyle so she tries to abort the fetus by herself. However, the procedure goes wrong and she ends up killing herself accidentally.
David and Linda come up with a plan to take care of the gargoyle once and for all. They lure it into the ventilation system. The gargoyle gets trapped there, which the duo uses to their advantage and it falls into an exhaust fan. The gargoyle is then dismembered and it dies. Linda and David reconnect with the Rocky Mountain lab via the radio.
Gargoyles had a weakness. The high-pitched frequency of a dog whistle was their vulnerability. So, the duo leaves the bunker with their dog Butch and leaves a high-frequency megaphone with a dog whistle sound on to keep the bunker safe, as they go out into the outside world. They wait for the other gargoyles to enter their open bunker and then implode it by detonating explosives.
The two then leave for a journey, probably heading towards the Rocky Mountain Lab. Another new topic of conversation that is birthed during this time is with reference to abortion. As one of the characters is raped by a gargoyle, people debate whether she is pregnant due to a gargoyle or by her human partner.
As a movie, “The Terror Within” isn’t the best science fiction horror but it is far from being repulsive. It pulls inspiration from “Alien” quite a lot. Thankfully, it works. There are some gore effects that are good enough for its time and era, and the movie comes with a decent dose of entertainment value. The shock factor is not its strong suit which can be a bit meh for those who love the shock from certain horror scenes.
Because the budget is pretty low, the CGI for the monster is a bit… well, not good. However, it manages to be creepy enough with its huge overbite. The Gargoyles are also responsible for giving us a lot of gory scenes, one of the most notable ones being when a woman’s stomach explodes while giving birth to a gargoyle, which soon grows large and turns violent.
The premise of the movie isn’t the first of its time and it wasn’t the last either. Surviving humans living in underground bunkers while monsters roam the streets is simple but enjoyable as a setting. Not too long ago, the movie “Love and Monsters” portrayed a very similar premise. This, combined with how lethal the mutant monsters are, helps create a heavily distressful world.
The mutant monsters aka the Gargoyles, are the main monsters of the movie. A devastating plague had ruined the civilization and its biochemical nature gave rise to mutations. These mutations began to roam the Earth and had the desire to procreate more.
It is believed that pre-mutation, the Gargoyles were humans, which is why they could reproduce with other humans. This was one of the driving factors for the creatures, well this and the need for domination. The surviving humans could not fight these creatures as they did not have enough strength to do so. Meanwhile, the Gargoyles populated and took over the Earth.
There is some CGI involved in their depiction but beyond that, it looks like it’s just a guy in a horrifying suit.
They reproduced by raping women and impregnating them. They grew very fast as well and as a result, the gestation period when a human woman was pregnant with a Gargoyle’s offspring was very short and deadly. In one such instance, the people tried to abort a fetus that was growing abnormally fast but before they could do so, it burst out of the mother’s belly and hid in the air vents. The mother died while the creature matured in the vents and became way too powerful to stop.
The Gargoyles had super strength and accelerated healing. Despite being burnt, beaten, or harmed with electrical shock, they could heal quite fast. In fact, the monster that matured in the vents was too powerful to be taken down by laser weaponry, a crowbar, and a flamethrower.
It could literally regenerate despite being hit with a spear,
Following Sue’s death, who died after she tried to kill the monster fetus inside her with drugs, David and Linda were able to find a vulnerability to use against the creature. They realized that it was vulnerable to high-pitched frequencies, such as the ones emitted by dog whistles.
Several gargoyles were taken down after David and Linda detonated explosives to kill them. Meanwhile, the other Gargoyle died after being shredded in the exhaust fan.
Part Man. Part Beast. Total Nightmare – The Terror Within II (1991)
“The Terror Within” returned two years after its release with a sequel. It follows the events laid down by the predecessor but this sequel has certain differences that we will get into in a bit. Also, Andrew Stevens takes the lead this time around as well. The movie is also directed by him, marking his debut as a director. The dog Butch returns, thankfully.
Earth is still a wasteland and humanity lives in pockets called bunkers. But, this time around, there is a ray of hope. The sequel gives us the backstory behind the mutation, which is something the first movie did not elaborate on. Turns out, a nuclear disarmament treaty resulted in covert experiments being conducted. These were experiments for biological warfare which resulted in the plague that wiped out humanity, barring those who mutated and those who retreated underground.
Since these creatures were formed after human beings mutated, thanks to the plague, a vaccine was developed to counter the mutation or the disease. There was still a major problem though. The components required to make the vaccine required people to come to the surface again; a surface overrun by these dangerous gargoyles, who are called ‘lusus’.
Stevens plays the scientist Pennington, who is to be dispatched to the surface to curate the materials required for the vaccine. While on the surface, he comes across this other woman. He tries to get the girl and the materials back to the colony but they are attacked by the mutant monsters.
David Pennington is a scientist from the Rocky Mountain Lab, a name that reminds you of its prequel. After coming to the surface, he hasn’t been able to return to the lab. Making matters worse, two members in Pennington’s lab happen to be sick. Meanwhile, the leader of their group in the laboratory, Von Demming (played by actor R. Lee Ermy), sends three more people from the colony to the surface. This is unfruitful as two of them are subsequently chased by a lusus while the other is killed. Ermy acted in this movie because he needed money to pay for his house.
During the battle with the lusus, one of the creature’s fingers is cut off. It is then brought to the laboratory for investigation and analysis.
David meets the woman that we mentioned a few moments ago. Her name is Ariel (played by actress Clare Hoak). As you may have already guessed, they end up falling in love. David tries to bring her back to the facility along with the vaccine ingredients but life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows in this post-apocalyptic desert.
The two-run into a band of scavengers, which turns out to be super detrimental to Pennington’s plan. As the lusus seek human women to mate, Ariel is raped by one. She is impregnated and the baby begins to grow rapidly within her. After a few weeks pass by, the lusus, which is a horrible mutation, is born.
The finger that was brought into the study for analysis grows to become another monster because it has regenerative powers. Now, with two monsters to wreak havoc, the facility is in a dire situation and almost everyone is killed. The only ones left are Ariel, David, and another couple.
David had acquired knowledge of how to fight the mutant creatures after the Mojave tragedy, which are the events of the first story. The three other human characters rely on his experience for their survival miles below the Earth’s surface, as they are faced with the threat of fighting not one but two horrifying mutations.
In the end, the two monsters are not only slain but also electrocuted and then impaled in the control center of the underground bunker colony.
This movie did not receive positive feedback from the critics. The plot is not exciting and the premise is exactly the same. The creature looks different- this time around it is much more cringe than the man in the suit with the overbite.
The movie has no clear motive. It begins as a story about finding the antidote, a romantic pairing is introduced as well. But as the movie progresses, it revokes its focus from the antidote or the pairing or even the lead character that is David and instead, is centered around the characters in the bunker, most of whom end up dead.
There is another plot hole that feels weird. The first movie lays emphasis on how these creatures are vulnerable to high-frequency whistle noises, kind of similar to the symbiote in “Spiderman 3”. However, Peter Parker uses that to his advantage while in “The Terror Within II”, it really isn’t used against the creatures.
The monster does not have the center stage either, at least not visually. It was a lot more visible in the first movie and had a better design. Here, it lurks around in the shadows but the pro to this approach is that the monster feels a lot more mysterious.
Lee Ermey’s performance comes as a breath of fresh air in the movie as he nails his part.
The monster, lusus, has properties similar to that of the Gargoyle. It can regenerate as we see when the lone finger regenerates into a fully grown monster. It also has super strength and endurance, being the lead antagonistic species.
However, it looks very different. It’s like a man with skin that has melted from his body while the muscular system is covered with slime. It also has a weird protrusion from the side of its head. The reason for this added feature is unknown and it doesn’t really serve much of a purpose to the monster.
It is possible that this monster is not vulnerable to the high frequency like the Gargoyles in “The Terror Within”, as the feature isn’t used to fight the lusus. It has some other tiny differences as well.
In the first movie, the birth of a gargoyle killed the mother who was birthing it, but here, Ariel managed to survive the birth of the lusus. Also, the gestation period lasted a lot longer than what was implied in the predecessor, even though it only lasted for a few weeks.
It is possible that the biochemical plague that caused the mutation only mutated the males in society and killed off the women. This is why the lusus or even the gargoyles are male and seek out human women to reproduce. It hasn’t directly been implied whether the creatures are gender-neutral or whether females exist or not. But if they did, it would’ve made more sense to mate with the female mutants.
Also, these creatures want to dominate the world, and impregnating human women leads to the death of a human and the birth of a gargoyle or a lusus, which takes care of two birds with one stone. The people present around the pregnant woman are also subjected to the wrath of the newborn mutant, which kills more people.
Why Should You Watch The Terror Within?
Despite all its flaws, “The Terror Within” has evolved to become a cult classic in the eyes of horror lovers. The first movie is more heavily inspired by “Alien” while the second movie just treads around that area. However, this gives fans of “Alien” another similar movie to go to for a Halloween binge.
The franchise is also not a stranger to gore. The depiction is graphic and the amount is quite high. If that’s what you like, “The Terror Within” should be right up your alley.
If you are in the mood to relax with your friends and make fun of weird monsters, this is a good movie to opt for as well. This is also a great movie if you want mindless entertainment. Well, the first one at least. Not every movie needs to be a cinematic masterpiece.
What did you think about these movies? Did you enjoy this video? If yes, then don’t forget to like and comment on this video. Till then, goodbye, and have a nice one!