Intermedio (film)

Infobox Film|name = Intermedio


caption =
director = Andrew Lauer
producer = David Michael Latt, David Rimawai
writer = Kraig Wenmann
starring = Edward Furlong, Cerina Vincent, Amber Benson, Callard Harris, Steve Railsback, Paul Cram
music =
cinematography = Neal Fredericks
editing = David Michael Latt
distributor =
released = March 29, 2005
runtime = 82 minutes
rating = R
country = USA
language = English
budget = $1,000,000
amg_id = 1:341842
imdb_id = 0414161

Intermedio is an American Horror film released in March 2005.

Cast

ynopsis

In a small southern California town, Malik (Edward Furlong) along with his former girlfriend Gen (Cerina Vincent) her friend Barbie (Amber Benson), and another friend named Wes (Callard Harris) decide to take a weekend getaway to an old ghost town where Malik and Gen played when they were younger.

The arrive at a long abandoned prospecting settlement which is said to contain miles of underground tunnels, some of which lead to the Mexican border less than a mile away. The four friends climb down into the tunnels, and are observed by a mysterious old man (Steve Railsback) from a short distance away. He tugs on a mysterious amulet hanging from a chain around his neck and pours what appears to be blood on the ground.

In the tunnels, Malik, Gen, Barbie, and Wes stumble into two Mexican drug dealers, Jorge and Al, along with sickeningly pale teenager Zee (Paul Cram), who are hauling some packets of contraband across the border. The drug dealers force the four teenagers to tag along with them. Suddenly, mysterious ghost-like creatures appear and begin to attack them, forcing the teenagers and drug runners to join forces and run to the nearest hatch to try to escape. The mysterious old man is seen stroking his necklace, summoning the mysterious creatures, and Al is killed when he gets impaled to a cavern wall when a hook and chain is thrown at him by one of the creatures.

Barbie is then sliced in half at the waist when she attempts to stand on Jorge's shoulders to open another hatch. Most of Jorge's fingers are severed as well. Zee seems to have disappeared and the remaining survivors manage to climb a ladder into a boarded up shack. Wes is then killed when one of the creatures bursts through a boarded up door and stabs him in the neck, supposedly leaving only the wounded Jorge, Gen, and Malik as survivors. They struggle to get out of the shack and back into the tunnels to find another way out, but Jorge is also killed by the creatures.

Malik and Gen soon discover a room filled with dozens of bodies that have been killed over the years. That's when ghostly teenage boy Zee appears again and leads them to a path. Eventually the two safely escape the tunnels only to discover that they have lost the keys to their car, and they ask the owner of a nearby house for a ride. The owner turns out to be the mysterious old man, although neither of the survivors know he is the one behind the attacks.

As the old man drives the two away in his truck, he offers them some beer. Gen drinks it and soon goes unconscious. The old man meanwhile stabs Malik in each of his legs and then knocks him out with chloroform.

Malik and Gen wake up back in the room filled with dead bodies, and after they each painfully remove the barbed wire binding their wrists, Gen discovers a small, narrow tunnel. They crawl under it and end up in the house of the old man. In the house they find a bedroom covered with newspaper clippings about a teenager named Zee that was slain years earlier in the tunnels, the old man was a suspect in the killing. That's when the ghost Zee appears again and shows them a passage underneath a bed. The old man soon finds the open passage and follows them into it.

Once again, the old man summons the ghostly creatures to attack the two survivors as they flee. Soon, Malik and Gen cross paths with the old man, who attacks them. The old man is about to murder Gen when for the first time in the whole film Zee speaks, or rather yells, at him to stop. Gen then takes the opportunity to attack the old man. Malik, meanwhile, is helpless due to his injured legs. Gen manages to get ahold of the necklace and destroys it, and the creatures show up and kill the old man.

Later, Gen cuts herself with a knife, dripping her blood onto a rock as she bids her deceased friend Wes goodbye. She meets up with Malik and they once again safely make it to the surface. It is soon daylight when they flag down another pickup truck and ask the driver man for a ride, though still wary from their ride with the old man, they jokingly tell the old man that they'd prefer to sit in the back.

In the final scene, Malik and Gen are safely in a motel room, relived that their ordeal is over. Malik then muses over the old man's ability to control spirits, wondering whether they could then control them too, which Gen simply shrugs off. The movie ends showing the dead Wes and Barbie staring at Malik and Gen through their motel room window.