Tubular Terrors: ‘The Intruder Within’

By Richard McKenna / October 28, 2026 The Intruder Within Directed by Peter Carter ABC (1981) The year is (probably) 1983 and I am an Alien-obsessed 12-year-old who spends a huge amount of his free time producing appalling felt-tip homages to Giger that not even my grandparents can pretend to be impressed by. One evening I see an advert on the telly for a made-for-TV movie and am instantly possessed: no matter that it is clearly a tawdry knock-off of one of my life’s most sacred inspirations—the one that is not Space: 1999—I must see ABC’s 1981 The Intruder Within when it’s broadcast. If it contains even a thousandth of the power of its progenitor, it is worth whatever chore-multiplying bargain I must strike with my parents. If ever an artifact served to underline the American TV movie’s function as an inexplicably watered-down and slightly cockeyed echo of the real excitements of the wider culture, The Intruder Within might be it. Written by hardened hack Ed Waters, who had cut his…