View source for Intensity (film)

{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2025}}
{{Use American English|date=January 2025}}
{{Infobox television
| image          = Intensity promotional artwork.jpg
| image_size     = 200
| caption        = Promotional artwork by Peter Ambush, for the ''[[The Star-Ledger|Newark Star-Ledger]]''{{'}}s ''Scanner'' magazine
| director       = [[Yves Simoneau]]
| producer       = {{plainlist|
* Preston Fischer
* [[Dean R. Koontz]]
* Tom Patricia
* Deborah Edell Underwood
}}
| writer         = [[Stephen Tolkin]]
| based_on       = ''[[Intensity (novel)|Intensity]]'' by [[Dean Koontz]]
| starring       = {{plainlist|
* [[John C. McGinley]]
* [[Molly Parker]]
* [[Deanna Milligan]]
* [[Piper Laurie]]
}}
| music          = [[George S. Clinton]]
| cinematography = David Franco
| editor         = [[Michael Ornstein]]
| company        = [[Mandalay Entertainment]]<br>[[TriStar Television]]
| network        = [[Fox Broadcasting Company|Fox]]
| released       = {{Start date|1997|08|05}}
| runtime        = 186 minutes
| country        = United States
| language       = English
| budget         = 
}}

'''''Intensity''''' is a 1997 American [[television film|television]] [[psychological thriller film]] directed by [[Yves Simoneau]], and starring [[John C. McGinley]], [[Molly Parker]], [[Piper Laurie]], and Tori Paul. Based on the 1995 [[Intensity (novel)|novel of the same name]] by [[Dean Koontz]], it focuses on a young woman who accompanies her friend home for [[Thanksgiving]], only to be met by a violent [[serial killer]].

The film originally was released as a two-part [[miniseries]] on [[Fox Broadcasting Company|Fox]] on August 5, 1997, with part two airing the following day.

==Plot==
Chyna Shepherd accompanies her friend, Laura Templeton, to her family's house in rural [[Washington (state)|Washington State]] for [[Thanksgiving]] dinner. A [[serial killer]] named Edgler Vess [[home invasion|invades the house]] and kills Laura and her family as Chyna hides in the killer's [[Recreational vehicle|RV]]. When Vess stops at a gas station, Chyna escapes and asks the two attendants to call the police. Before she has time to explain, Vess returns and torments the two workers before brutally killing them with a [[shotgun]]. Chyna then learns that he is holding a 14-year-old girl named Ariel hostage in his basement. She becomes determined to save Ariel and uses one of the shopkeepers' cars to follow Vess back to his home. On the road she runs into a woman named Miriam and asks her to call the police. Miriam believes Chyna is disturbed and moves on.

Miriam stops at the gas station and finds the shopkeepers' bodies, leading her to believe Chyna's story. She makes a hysterical phone call to the police, telling them that they "need to save Chyna and Ariel," which the police initially dismiss. Upon trying to fall back to sleep, a policeman, Ethan Trevaine, remembers the name Ariel from a [[missing person]]'s case and begins investigating. Meanwhile, Chyna's car runs out of gasoline and abandons it in the middle of the road, forcing Vess to stop. As he pushes the car down an embankment, Chyna enters his RV and hides, unknowingly leaving footprints. Vess suspects another person has entered the RV but feigns obliviousness. He then kills Miriam when she tries to run him off the road and save Chyna. When they arrive at his home, Chyna attempts to free Ariel from a fortified room. She is attacked and subdued by Vess.

As a captive, Chyna speaks with Vess and has flashbacks to her traumatic childhood: as a little girl, she witnessed her disturbed, abusive mother and her boyfriend kill her neighbors. In turn, Vess reveals his obsession with the "intensity" of any particular experience and declares his intention to kill both her and Ariel, offering Chyna a slightly more merciful death if she agrees to aid him in mentally torturing Ariel out of her [[catatonia]]. The two have further [[existentialism|existential]] conversations regarding [[God]] and the nature of [[good and evil]].

When Vess is late returning to work after the Thanksgiving holiday, he lies and tells his boss he had to make a last-minute trip to [[Portland, Oregon|Portland]] and got home later than expected. He departs, leaving Chyna chained to the dining room table. She watches in horror as one of Vess's other captives escapes from a drain hatch in his backyard, only to be mauled to death by his bloodthirsty [[German Shepherd]]s. Chyna manages to free herself and seizes the opportunity to escape with Ariel. After dressing in Vess's dog-training gear and spraying [[ammonia]] in the eyes of his dogs, Chyna attempts to flee with Ariel in Vess's RV, but unwittingly triggers an alarm that causes him to return home early.

Before they can make their escape, an unmarked vehicle and a police car arrive. Although Chyna believes Vess to be in the unmarked vehicle driven by Trevaine, it is revealed that Vess is actually a [[sheriff]] who emerges from the police car and opens fire on Trevaine, killing him. Chyna and Ariel manage to escape back to Vess's house, where Chyna ultimately gets the better of Vess. She sets him on fire, confines him in Ariel's old room and watches as he burns to death. In the aftermath, Chyna visits Ariel in a psychiatric hospital but is denied custody of her; she is told that the young girl will require extensive therapy to recover from her trauma. As Chyna prepares to leave without her, Ariel, speaking for the first time, suddenly calls out to her the name "Badger", a character from a story Chyna had told her about to help bring her courage while escaping from Vess. The two embrace, and it is implied that Chyna's custody of Ariel was granted.

==Cast==
{{Cast list|
* [[John C. McGinley]] as Edgler Foreman Vess
* [[Molly Parker]] as Chyna Shepherd
**Katie Stuart as Young Chyna
* Blu Mankuma as Ethan Trevaine
* Lori Triolo as Lori
* [[Brent Stait]] as Jim Woltz
* [[Deanna Milligan]] as Laura Templeton
* [[Kavan Smith]] as Jack Templeton
* [[Piper Laurie]] as Miriam Braynard
* Tori Paul as Ariel Delane
* Alex Diakun as Mr. John Q. Citizen
* [[Babz Chula]] as Mrs. John Q. Citizen 
* [[Alf Humphreys]] as George Jespersen
* Edmond Kato Wong as Tom
* Meredith Bain Woodward as Sarah Templeton
}}

==Production==
The miniseries was filmed in [[Vancouver]], British Columbia, Canada.<ref>{{cite news|work=[[Times Colonist]]|date=August 5, 1997|p=50|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/113385900/|title=TV BestBets|last=Wiseman|first=Les|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>

==Release==
''Intensity'' aired in two parts on [[Fox Broadcasting Company|Fox]] network on August 5 and August 6, 1997, respectively.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/113379376/|work=[[The Times Herald]]|date=August 3, 1997|p=2|title=Dean Koontz claims 'Intensity' will scare you|last=Hughes|first=Mike|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> The film was the first summer-released miniseries or television film produced by Fox at the time.<ref>{{cite news|work=[[San Francisco Examiner]]|date=June 11, 1997|p=39|title=Summer miniseries|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/113379493/|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>

===Critical response===
Ron Miller of ''[[Tribune Content Agency|Knight Ridder News]]'' praised the film as a "horror masterpiece, intelligently conceived and brilliantly executed, and the best program of its time television has ever produced."<ref>{{cite news|work=[[The Columbian]]|last=Miller|first=Ron|date=August 3, 1997|p=5|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/113378998/|via=Newspapers.com|title=Dean Koontz's 'Intensity' is One Very Scary Movie}}</ref> Tom Shales of ''[[The Washington Post]]'' panned the film for its graphic subject matter, writing: "''Intensity'' is certainly not without its shocks and scares. But the whole thing is so stomach-churning and nasty that you don't so much watch it as subject yourself to it. Life is really much too short to spend four hours of it with a preening, prancing monster like Edgler Vess."<ref>{{cite web|last=Shales|first=Tom|date=August 5, 1997|title=Fox's 'Intensity': A Deadly Sin|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1997/08/05/foxs-intensity-a-deadly-sin/6468f07f-2dcc-47e3-ba10-fad02bd6f344/|archive-date=November 20, 2022|url-status=live|archive-url=https://archive.today/20221120210011/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1997/08/05/foxs-intensity-a-deadly-sin/6468f07f-2dcc-47e3-ba10-fad02bd6f344/|work=[[The Washington Post]]}}</ref>

Hal Boedeker of ''[[The Baltimore Sun]]'' criticized the film for its plot holes and cliched elements, writing: "So it pushes the boundaries for made-for-TV thrillers. Do we need to start a national furor over it? Nope. Don't watch. A more crucial rating for ''Intensity'' would be a big fat I (for illogical)."<ref>{{cite web|work=[[The Baltimore Sun]]|last=Boedeker|first=Hal|date=August 4, 1997|title='Intensity' needs many ratings warnings|url=https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1997-08-05-1997217110-story.html|url-status=live|archive-url=https://archive.today/20221120211129/https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1997-08-05-1997217110-story.html|archive-date=November 20, 2022}}</ref>

In a 2021 retrospective assessment of the film for ''[[Screen Rant]]'', critic Cathal Gunning wrote that ''Intensity'' is the best adaptation of a Dean Koontz novel to date.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://screenrant.com/intensity-show-dean-koontz-best-adaptation/|work=[[Screen Rant]]|title=Why Intensity Is The Best Dean Koontz Adaptation|date=July 18, 2021|last=Gunning|first=Cathal|url-status=live|archive-url=https://archive.today/20221120211402/https://screenrant.com/intensity-show-dean-koontz-best-adaptation/|archive-date=November 20, 2022}}</ref>

===Home media===
In 2012, [[Sony Pictures Home Entertainment]] released ''Intensity'' on [[DVD-R]] through their "Choice Collection" of made-on-demand discs.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/58597/dean-koontzs-intensity/|url-status=live|title=Intensity|work=[[DVD Talk]]|last=Miller|first=Randy III|date=June 5, 2012|archive-url=https://archive.today/20221120210441/https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/58597/dean-koontzs-intensity/|archive-date=November 20, 2022}}</ref>

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*{{IMDb title|id=0118350|title=Intensity}}

{{Dean Koontz}}
{{Yves Simoneau}}

[[Category:1997 television films]]
[[Category:1997 films]]
[[Category:American serial killer films]]
[[Category:American thriller television films]]
[[Category:Fiction about familicide]]
[[Category:Films based on American novels]]
[[Category:Films based on works by Dean Koontz]]
[[Category:Films set in Washington (state)]]
[[Category:Films shot in Vancouver]]
[[Category:Films scored by George S. Clinton]]
[[Category:Films with screenplays by Stephen Tolkin]]
[[Category:Fox Broadcasting Company original films]]
[[Category:Films about home invasion]]
[[Category:Thanksgiving in films]]
[[Category:1990s English-language films]]
[[Category:1990s American films]]
[[Category:1990s serial killer films]]
[[Category:1997 thriller films]]
[[Category:English-language crime films]]
[[Category:English-language thriller films]]