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Night Of The Creeps
Directed By Fred Dekker
Released: 1986
Starring: Jason Lively, Steve Marshall, Jill Whitlow, and Tom Atkins
Running Time: 89 minutes
In 1959, an alien experiment containing parasitic brain-eating slugs is
jettisoned to Earth. A young frat guy plays host to the slugs and is kept
in cryogenic storage for many years in the Corman University science
department. Now (1986), two fraternity wannabes, Chris Romero (Jason
Lively) and J.C. Hooper (Steve Marshall), unwittingly set the frozen man
free during a prank gone wrong to impress sorority girl, Cynthia
Cronenberg (Jill Whitlow). Pretty soon, the alien slugs begin entering
people’s mouths, feeding on their brains, gestating, exploding out of
foreheads, and causing general zombie mischief around the campus and
surrounding town. It’s up to Detective Ray Cameron (Tom Atkins), Chris,
and Cynthia to destroy the slugs and a horde of the living dead.
Fred Dekker (The Monster Squad) directs this mindless, gory,
funny, and action-packed horror flick. The editing by Michael N. Knue (House,
The Hidden) is extremely tight and the film flies by even
after repeat viewings. An excellent crew of special effects and makeup
wizards supply Night Of The Creeps with its awesome gore and
nasty creatures. Among the talent is Howard Berger who has worked on
everything from Maniac Cop 3 to Scream and
Hostel. The dialogue is funny, corny, and perfectly quotable.
There’s plenty of great performances to go around in Night Of The
Creeps. Jason Lively and Steve Marshall are perfectly cast as the
dorky knuckleheads, Chris and J.C. Their characters play off of each other
well and the two actors hold their own through the film’s comedy and
occasional melodramatics. Jill Whitlow is simply adorable as Cynthia, the
sorority sister/heroine. And show-stealer Tom Atkins (The Fog,
Maniac Cop) is awesome as Detective Cameron. His noir-laden
gimmick is a perfect fit in the film. There’s also a funny cameo from cult
movie veteran Dick Miller.
Every self-respecting 80s horror fan must go out of their way to watch
this one. This superficial, fun, and painfully cool movie is equally
cheesy and well made. Loaded with tons of references to horror flicks
(check out the last names of the main characters), generic 80s pop songs,
little naked alien butts, exploding heads, zombies, and a fantastic
unibrow, Night Of The Creeps never stops moving for a
second. “Detective, thrill me.”
On a personal note, Night Of The Creeps will always remain
in my top 10 favorite horror films of all time. I caught this on TV when I
was 12 and then proceeded to rent it about a dozen times from my local
video store. The hilarious dialogue and the endless amount of carnage kept
me coming back to it over and over. My recommendation for this film is as
high as they come. By the way, it’s a freakin’ crime against humanity that
this is still only available in ancient VHS rental copies and overpriced
bootlegs. People, let’s write to Anchor Bay or Image Entertainment and beg
them to pick this one up.
More
screenshots here
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