Night of the Creeps (1986)

Pretty Good

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

This film is absolutely brilliant and hilarious - especially for horror comedy film fans.In the mix it is a comedy horror film which includes elements from zombie films, slasher films, alien invasion films, teenage frat parties, an alcoholic detective. But I won't ruin it for everyone, just watch it - but a few alcoholic beverages will make it even more enjoyable.You know you're in the 80s with the music and clothing with this one. There are some parts of the film where I just creased up with laughter. You won't ever tire or get bored of this film. You'll love it when you watch it.

Though something of a highly regarded cult item today, Fred Dekker's first film, "Night of the Creeps," was an unqualified flop when first released in August 1986, only recouping a little more than 1/10 of its $5 million budget. A highly amusing yet genuinely jolting mixture of comedy and horror, the film combined any number of disparate genres--the zombie film, the alien invasion film, the depressed/suicidal cop-seeking-redemption film, the frat house comedy--into one highly satisfying stew, and yet, for some reason, failed to find its audience at the box office. With the advantage of hindsight, however, and in no small part thanks to the advent of the DVD revolution, "Night of the Creeps," like many of its primary and secondary characters, is enjoying a very vigorous second life after having arisen from limbo, and is today appreciated for the highly entertaining, modest piece of work that it is.The opening sequences of the film are perhaps the best. The viewer is treated to a pitched battle aboard an alien spaceship, during which one of the diminutive ETs manages to jettison a canister of...something, which promptly plummets down to planet Earth, in the year 1959. Although the entire film can be regarded as a pastiche of and homage to the sci-fi "B movies" of the 1950s, the next sequence, filmed in B&W, is especially reminiscent. In a scene straight out of "The Blob," two necking teenagers see a streaking meteor fall to the ground, and go to investigate. The male youth, Johnny, is attacked by something from the fallen canister, while his poor galpal, nervously waiting back at the car, is hacked to bits by an escaped ax murderer. Flash forward 27 years, to 1986, when we meet two college students, Chris (Jason Lively, who had appeared in "European Vacation" the year before) and J.C. (Steve Marshall), his handicapped best friend. When Chris develops an instantaneous crush on sorority girl Cynthia (Jill Whitlow), the pair decides that the only way to impress the young hottie is for the two of them to apply to the superhip Beta fraternity. The two break into a cryogenics lab in order to purloin a cadaver, as part of their hazing ordeal, but when the corpsicle suddenly comes to life, the two youths flee in fear. Too late, however. Before long, the awakened cadaver--soon revealed to be Johnny himself--begins to lumber around campus, and even worse...his body soon disgorges a swarm of scuttling, sluglike creatures, which only serve to spread the zombie contagion even further....Fans of so-called B movies will especially enjoy all the cinematic and directorial references with which writer/director Dekker has filled his movie. The bulk of the film transpires at Corman University, and Chris', J.C.'s and Cynthia's surnames are, respectively, Romero, Carpenter Hooper and Cronenberg! Four of the detective sergeants on the zombie case are named Dante, De Palma, Landis and Raimi (Raimi is played by Bruce Solomon, who many will recall as another sergeant, Sgt. Dennis Foley, on TV's "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman"), while veteran character actor Tom Atkins (who many will recognize from such films as John Carpenter's "The Fog" and "Escape From New York," as well as from "Lethal Weapon") plays that depressed/suicidal head detective previously mentioned, a character named Cameron. And if all these wonderful wink-wink mentions aren't enough, one of the zombie victims in the film is shown watching the Ed Wood classic "Plan 9 From Outer Space" on TV, and B-movie legend Dick Miller pops up in a very amusing cameo, playing a police armorer. The film contains any number of memorable scenes, and the one in which the crippled J.C. is trapped in a bathroom with a swarm of the scurrying "creeps" should do for toilet stalls what "Psycho" did for showers and "Jaws" did for the beach. Those creeps, by the way, should really strike a chord in anyone who has ever been startled by a mouse or water bug speeding through his or her apartment or between their legs. Zippy as a rodent yet undeniably sluglike, they are memorable horror creations indeed. And in a film with consistently ingratiating performances from its largely "no-name" cast, Atkins really does shine, and gets to deliver the lion's share of the picture's best lines. His constantly repeated refrain, "Thrill me," should have become some kind of cinematic catchphrase, on the order of Dirty Harry's "Make my day" (Dekker, in one of the deluxe DVD's copious extras, reveals that it was this line, which came to him as he slept, that served as the basis for the entire rest of the film), but is just one of a dozen great others that Det. Cameron amusingly grates during the course of his job here. "A smart, audacious film" says author Glenn Kay while describing "Night of the Creeps" in his "Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide," and darn, if that isn't ever the truth! Dekker, over the course of the next six years, would go on to direct "Monster Squad" and, um, "RoboCop 3," neither of which this viewer has seen. Still, I very much doubt if either of those films provides such a deft balancing act of chills and laughs as does "Night of the Creeps." The film is an unexpected winner from beginning to end (this viewer prefers the director's cut, by the way, with its returning-spaceship finale), and might leave you open mouthed with surprise. Better to tape that mouth shut, hence, in order to prevent an entry point for any of those darn creeps!

Two students named Chris (Lively) and J.C. (Marshall) pledge a fraternity so Chris can make points with his dream girl Cynthia (Whitlow). The fraternity jocks have no intention of letting the geeks join them, but set them up for a prank that results in them freeing a cryogenic ally frozen zombie from 27 years ago that has alien slugs still alive in it. The slugs quickly multiply on campus as they enter the victim's mouth and incubate in their brains until their hatched. A radical police detective named Cameron (Atkins) who has connections to the case from years ago is called in to get to the bottom of it. It isn't long before students are turned into zombies and our rag tag team must figure out how to stop and kill them. This fun film is a great mix of Sci-Fi and horror done with tongue in cheek from first time Writer/Director Fred Dekker. Dekker fills this movie with everything a fright film fan can want. He starts by making his characters very real. The friendship between Chris and J.C. is real and believable and credit has to be given to the actors for pulling this off in such a fashion. When Chris discovers slugs may have taken over his best friend we truly believe and feel his pain. The over the top smart talking detective played by Tom Atkins is a delightful mix of attitude and humor, and is probably Atkins best genre roll. Atkins shines in a role he seems born to play as he answers to anyone with the memorable line "Thrill me". The film has a fun campy side that is purely intentional, but boasts some excellent make up effects and delivers some great gore moments. Not overly scary, but well made and executed with genre fans in mind, Night of the Creeps will keep a smile on your face throughout and you will have a ton of fun watching it.

Fred Dekker directs this horror comedy about a pair of fraternity pledges who thaw out a cryogenic frozen body of a college student from 1959. Turns out, he had been infected by an alien parasite from a crashed UFO experiment, and now reanimated, infects the entire campus, turning students into zombie-like creatures who threaten to infect the world.Highly contrived and over-the-top film has appealing performances from Jill Whitlow and especially Tom Atkins as the investigating detective, but otherwise is absurd and crass, with little else to recommend it, though it is a cult classic.