Cyrus is the Opposite of Nostalgic for "Night of the Creeps"

“Night of the Creeps”

It’s not easy to make an intentionally B-rated film for laughs. Many have tried and failed and only a few have made it past the surprisingly acute scanners of horror/genre film buffs. One of those held high amongst such of my brethren was “Night of The Creeps”, a 1986 horror film that mixes alien invasion, slasher movies, and zombie films to make a comedy horror that wears its intentions so plainly on its sleeve that it actually has a character watching “Plan 9 From Outer Space” at one point. I, however, must have been sick the weekend this was in the theater because up until now, I had never seen it (yes, yes, get your jeers out). Turns out, you pretty much have to have seen it then to not want to die from the sheer eighties-ness of the entire affair.

The story follows hard nosed cop Ray Cameron, played by horror staple Tom Atkins, who is all-action, whiskey, and tough one-liners (he actually says, “It’s Miller Time” at one point before firing his gun), nerdish college freshman Chris Romero (Jason Lively) and the girl he’s obsessed over but is way out of his league, Cynthia Cronenberg (Jil Whitlow). Yes, they’re all named after directors.Whittling it down to the essence here, little alien slugs are slithering at high speeds around the town and possessing the living and the dead, incubating in their brains so they can produce more little alien slugs. Ray is on the case but haunted by memories of his murdered lost love from long ago, Chris is losing friends while trying to protect/hit on his completely unattainable chick, and Cynthiamugs for the camera and looks as innocent as a sexy Care Bear. Was there a lust Care Bear? Should have been.

Having described the characters and the scenario, you can more or less guess how this plays out. Mainly you’d be right except “Creeps” offers a few surprises along the way, both with its clever effects (although, definitely effected by budgetary limitations to at times a laughable extent) the strange mixing of genres (the alien slugs possess a serial killer that the cop had killed and buried secretly long, long ago) and humor, both intentional and un (like the constant ALL TOO eighties moments of dialogue...it burns usssss).

By the somewhat tighter standards of today to get a film released theatrically, this is pretty lazy film making, even looking past the budgetary constraints. There are just SO many moments that you want to lynch the entire crew for not pointing out how little any of this makes sense, even in a satirical fashion. It’s both a satire of a B movie, AND a B movie in its own right, which, of course, makes it easier to swallow the blips although I feel cheated somehow nonetheless. I wish I had seen this way back when so my affection would be less adulterated by time and experience. Seeing it now, I can say that it’s cute and has some good laughs, but certainly not a must-watch for any but the most hard core of 80’s horror fans.

Despite my cynical reaction, “Night of the Creeps” has some serious pockets of fandom. They will be pleased to see how great the picture looks along with the healthy heap of extras: a director and cast commentary, a trivia track, deleted scenes, a sizable amount of well-made featurettes interviewing everybody involved, and best of all, the director’s original ending has been put back on the film, one even the fans probably never saw.

Its impossible to criticize this film without feeling at least a little silly. B-movies that have reached their audience have an armor made of snark that is next to impossible to penetrate. Still, this is just an amusing RENT for me, but the rest of you creeps, and you know who you are, you’ll be thrilled by the love that was put into this re-release.

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