Horror 2025 Countdown: Innerspace (1987)

Innerspace (1987), dir. Joe Dante, Amblin Entertainment 

We've talk about nearly everything he did, but we did skip over a few things. Hopefully this rectifies things. By now Jow Dante was riding high thanks to Gremlins, so why not a sci-fi comedy?

In San Francisco, Lt. Tuck Pemberton (Dennis Quaid) is your typical flight jockey. He's just broken up with his gal Lydia (Meg Ryan) but he's still in high spirits. He's been selected for a top secret project. Why so secret?

Shrinking-yup, a group of scientists have figured how to reduce something to really small. The problem is they are not the only group interested in such technology. Victor Scrimshaw (Kevin McCarthy) is most interested and sends his agents to bust up the lab, steal the processing chip and make sure they can't make any.

Unknown to them at the time, the chips needed are two and the other one is inside the now shrunken pod with Tuck. Dr. Wexler (John Hora) flees the lab and darts inside a mall with the shrunken pod and grim Mr. Igoe (Vernon Wells) in hot pursuit. The doc gets shot but before he dies, he stabs the hypo containing Tuck into the first schlub he finds, namely grocery store clerk Jack Putter (Martin Short).

Jack is bit of a hypochondriac, so getting an unexpected needle jab from a stranger doesn't help his state of mind. At the doctor's office, Tuck quickly figures out he's not inside a test rabbit, so a few probes later he introduces himself Jack. 

Jack does not take it well. Faced with the idea of a tiny metal pod floating around his body with a tiny skeleton sitting at the controls forever if he doesn't help, Jack tracks down Lydia and together the group tries to help Tuck before he runs out of air. 

Scrimshaw is not a man who gives up very easy and soon Jack's day is about to get very complicated. 

Pretty darn good. The effects are amazing and still hold up today. Quaid and Short play off each other wonderfully but McCarthy steals every scene he's in. Scrimshaw is just over the top enough to be menacing but not campy enough to be silly.