Clean Up on Aisle Murder: Bill Roberts Slashes His Way Into the Hall of Killers Third Class

The Hall of Killers continues to expand, and this week a new employee has clocked in for the night shift. Unfortunately, he’s not here to restock the shelves or run the tills. He’s here to brutally murder the entire staff.

That’s right, Bill Roberts from the 1989 supermarket slasher Intruder has officially been inducted into the Third Class tier of the Hall of Killers, proving once and for all that when management says the store is closing down, sometimes they really mean permanently.

Portrayed by Dan Hicks (who genre fans will instantly recognise as Jake from Evil Dead II), Bill Roberts begins the film as the co-owner of the Walnut Lake Market, a modest grocery store where the biggest problem of the night shift should have been price reductions and reorganising canned beans.

Instead, Bill decides the best way to deal with declining profits is a little workplace restructuring. By which we mean slaughtering absolutely everyone.

Before the events of the film, Bill worked as a volunteer firefighter. He quit the job after witnessing a colleague carrying the severed head of a decapitated accident victim. Most people would see that and simply think “maybe this job isn’t for me.” Bill apparently saw it and thought, “Well… that’s an interesting idea.”

He eventually finds work as a butcher at Walnut Lake Market and works his way up to co-owner alongside Danny. Unfortunately for Danny, Bill becomes extremely attached to the store. When Danny decides to sell the business to the city due to financial losses, Bill does not take the news well.

In fact, he takes it so poorly that he decides the logical solution is murder.

The film’s plot kicks off when Craig Peterson, the aggressive ex-boyfriend of cashier Jennifer Ross, shows up at the store looking for trouble. After a brief scuffle, Craig is thrown out by Bill and the other employees, and the police are called.

Now, if this were a sensible slasher film, the police might actually stick around. Instead they essentially say “call us if anything else happens” and leave a building full of stressed night workers alone in a locked supermarket with a man who is very clearly about to snap.

Spoiler alert. Something else does indeed happen.

While the employees begin marking down items for clearance following the announcement that the store will soon close, Bill begins implementing what can only be described as the most aggressive staff reduction plan in retail history.

First to go is Linda, who is stabbed outside in the parking lot. Bill then frames Craig for the crime after beating him unconscious with a hammer. From there, Bill begins picking off the rest of the staff one by one using whatever sharp or unpleasant object the supermarket environment provides.

And in a supermarket, there are quite a lot of those.

Victims are stabbed, impaled, dismembered and scattered throughout the building like extremely grisly promotional displays. One unlucky employee even has his eye impaled on a receipt spindle, proving that even the stationery aisle can be deadly if you apply enough enthusiasm.

Meanwhile, Jennifer slowly realises that the real killer is not her violent ex-boyfriend, but the man who literally owns the store.

Bill eventually reveals his motive in a moment of chilling honesty. His original plan was simply to kill Danny to prevent the store from being sold. Unfortunately for everyone else, he admits he “got carried away.”

That’s one way of putting it.

What follows is a frantic chase through locked aisles, storage rooms and display cabinets as Jennifer tries to escape while discovering the various mutilated remains of her coworkers. At one point Bill even uses Danny’s severed head as a hand puppet, which is the sort of darkly absurd moment that perfectly sums up Intruder’s twisted sense of humour.

Eventually Jennifer manages to escape through a bathroom window, only for Bill to continue pursuing her outside. After being stabbed and hacked repeatedly with his own meat cleaver by Craig, Bill appears to finally be defeated.

But in true slasher fashion, the film ends with one final twist.

As the police arrive and mistakenly arrest Jennifer and Craig for the massacre, the supposedly dead Bill Roberts suddenly opens his eyes.

Which is the cinematic equivalent of your manager saying “Actually, could you stay late tonight?”

Released in 1989, Intruder was the feature directorial debut of Scott Spiegel, who co-wrote the film with Lawrence Bender. Spiegel based the story partly on his own experiences working in a supermarket, which suggests he either had a very unusual job or an extremely active imagination.

The film was shot inside a real empty grocery store, which the production team filled with over two tons of defective goods to make the setting look authentic. That means every spilled tin and smashed jar you see on screen was part of a very carefully arranged disaster.

Intruder has since become a cult favourite among slasher fans thanks to its inventive kills, claustrophobic setting and the involvement of several familiar faces from the Sam Raimi filmmaking circle. Raimi himself appears in a supporting role, Ted Raimi has a small part, and Bruce Campbell turns up briefly near the end as a police officer.

Which means the film technically contains Evil Dead royalty… even if most of them show up after all the killing has already happened.

The movie has also enjoyed several home video releases over the years, including an uncensored Blu-ray edition released by 88 Films, which restored the gore that had been removed from earlier R-rated versions.

All of this brings us back to Bill Roberts.

He may not wear a mask. He may not have supernatural powers. He is simply a supermarket owner with a knife, a grudge, and absolutely no respect for workplace health and safety regulations.

But when it comes to slasher villains, sometimes that’s more than enough.

So congratulations, Bill. Welcome to the Third Class tier of the Hall of Killers.

Please remember to clock out before you leave.

And maybe wipe down the meat counter.