One of the earliest Alien rip-offs was made for US television. We take a look back at 1981’s The Intruder Within.

Much like Jaws, Star Wars and Mad Max before it, the success of 1979’s Alien prompted studios and producers the world over to make their own hastily-made rip-off movies. Thanks to – shall we say – enterprising filmmakers like Roger Corman and Norman J Warren, we got cheap and cheerful fare like Barracuda (1978), Battle Beyond The Stars (1980) and Inseminoid (1981).

One of the earliest Alien clones to emerge like a shambling monster, though, was The Intruder Within – a low-budget TV movie that cheekily borrowed all sorts of ideas from Ridley Scott’s hit, but transplanted the entire thing from a spaceship in the future to an oil rig in the post-energy crisis early 1980s. As you can probably imagine, it isn’t a lost classic, but it’s fascinating to revisit, both...