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, I had a chance to sit down in 2020 to watch the 1989 movie "The Terror Within" for the first time. I had already seen the 1991 sequel "The Terror Within II" and wasn't impressed with that, but still I managed to sit down to watch this first movie as I hadn't already seen it.

And while "The Terror Within" wasn't an overly impressive or outstanding movie, it was at least better than its sequel in many ways. But I will say that "The Terror Within" is not a bad movie, as there are far worse movies of this type out there. It is watchable and enjoyable enough for the cheesy movie that it is.

The storyline is pretty straight forward and very easy to follow. It is a storyline that is a lot akin to the story told in the "Alien" movie, like it or not. However, the movie was sort of dystopian future in its setting, and it actually worked out well enough.

As for the cast in the movie, then I was only familiar with George Kennedy, and it was sort of odd to see him in a movie such as this. While he fared well enough in "The Terror Within", he did feel a bit out of his element in this type of movie.

"The Terror Within" is a creature feature, and luckily we do get to see a lot of the creature that is stalking the characters in the subterranean complex. Sure, the creature design are old and bears witness to being made in 1989, but I am sure that back then they were pretty impressive. But by todays standards, then this was a mere rubber suit with a facial mask that was unable to articulate.

I am rating "The Terror Within" a mediocre five out of ten stars. The movie was watchable and sort of entertaining enough. However, this was by no account a milestone in cinematic history. Nor is it a movie that actually spurs a second viewing once you've seen it the first time.

It is the post-apocalyptic age, and the world has been changed by "the accident," a chemical warfare experiment gone awry...

Why is George Kennedy in this? As the only "name" actor, did he lend some sort of publicity to this film? Or was he just that washed up that he had to start doing cheesy horror and science fiction flicks? This could hardly be called the highlight of his career.

Lots of horror films exist about a post-apocalyptic future (though today they all seem to have zombies) and lots of horror films exist about a strange pregnancy. Not many combine the two themes. This one does. Now, you could say it is a science fiction film more than a horror film (and you could make a good argument). You may even argue that this is heavily influenced by "Alien". On that, you would have to argue a little more (but maybe not a lot, as they even name-drop the film).

Overall, an okay picture... some really cheesy effects at times (the pregnant belly looks pretty bad),but maybe you like cheese. I like cheese. Heck, I live in Wisconsin -- half my diet is cheese.