Gratuitous Scary Movie Post - Night of the Creeps
It's one part sci-fi, two parts zombie flick, two parts 80s teen movie, one part TOM ATKINS, and all parts awesome. It's Fred Dekker's cult classic, Night of the Creeps.
Night of the Creeps (1986)
The first few minutes of this movie are a little bizarre, as we watch what are obviously little people in flesh tone costumes pretending to be aliens running around a spaceship. They struggle to prevent one of their number from releasing a canister containing an "experiment" from the ship, but it is nonetheless released and crashes to earth. The year is 1959. We see a college couple at a makeout spot, but before they can get hot and heavy they see a shooting star and the guy goes to investigate, leaving his date to be murdered by an axe-wielding psychopath who has escaped from a mental hospital. The guy who went to investigate doesn't fare much better, finding the canister and unleashing a slug-like creature that jumps into his mouth. EW.
Twenty-five years later, we seem to have jumped not only in time but in genre. Our sci-fi film with cute little aliens has become a teen movie with cute little geeks. It's pledge week and freshman Chris, with the help of his friend J.C., is trying to get over a heartbreak. He gets over his Rosaline when he spots a Juliet (Cynthia, actually) at a frat party. Wanting to impress her, he decides to pledge a fraternity. The leader of the fraternity, who has no intention of letting Chris join, assigns him the task of stealing a cadaver from the university's medical center and placing it on the steps of another frat's house. Chris and J.C. do find a body, in a state of suspended animation, but when they try to move it, it gets with the grab-grab. Oh yeah, and the body? It belongs to the guy who swallowed the slug thingy back in 1959. Though Chris and J.C. don't actually remove the body themselves, it ends up getting loose and wreaking havoc on the fraternity and sorority kids. And now our teen movie has transformed into a zombie flick.
In the middle of all this is Detective Ray Cameron, played by the baddest assest genre actor on the planet - the one, the only, Tom Atkins. Cameron is still melancholy because twenty-five years ago his girlfriend dumped him, went with some other guy, and then got herself axe murdered. Oh yeah, the girl in the beginning used to be his squeeze. He forms an interesting relationship with Chris, who he calls "Spanky," and he's just an all-around whiskey-drinkin', shotgun-wieldin', snark-retortin' hunk of awesomesauce. "Thrill me," he deadpans as he answers the phone. "It's Miller time," he growls just before opening fire on some zombies. And he has possibly the greatest line in the history of film, which was tweaked for one of the movie's taglines.
Cameron: (cheerily) I've got good news and bad news, girls. The good news is your dates are here.
Sorority Girl: What's the bad news?
Cameron: They're dead.
This is all kinds of silly fun, with just enough scary but not too much. There's actual characterization, even in characters that seem like stereotypes. And for genre geeks, there are all kinds of little Easter eggs. Corman University is an homage to Roger Corman. And most of the characters' last names are nods to great horror and sci-fi directors - Cameron, Cronenberg, Romero, Raimi, Landis, Carpenter, etc.
I'll leave you with some of Tom Atkins's greatest hits from this movie. Check out great character actor and Roger Corman staple Dick Miller (watching this again, and being in the middle of filling out my BNAT application, I kind of squeed at the sight of him) at around 5:20, when Atkins asks him for a flame thrower.
Night of the Creeps (1986)
The first few minutes of this movie are a little bizarre, as we watch what are obviously little people in flesh tone costumes pretending to be aliens running around a spaceship. They struggle to prevent one of their number from releasing a canister containing an "experiment" from the ship, but it is nonetheless released and crashes to earth. The year is 1959. We see a college couple at a makeout spot, but before they can get hot and heavy they see a shooting star and the guy goes to investigate, leaving his date to be murdered by an axe-wielding psychopath who has escaped from a mental hospital. The guy who went to investigate doesn't fare much better, finding the canister and unleashing a slug-like creature that jumps into his mouth. EW.
Twenty-five years later, we seem to have jumped not only in time but in genre. Our sci-fi film with cute little aliens has become a teen movie with cute little geeks. It's pledge week and freshman Chris, with the help of his friend J.C., is trying to get over a heartbreak. He gets over his Rosaline when he spots a Juliet (Cynthia, actually) at a frat party. Wanting to impress her, he decides to pledge a fraternity. The leader of the fraternity, who has no intention of letting Chris join, assigns him the task of stealing a cadaver from the university's medical center and placing it on the steps of another frat's house. Chris and J.C. do find a body, in a state of suspended animation, but when they try to move it, it gets with the grab-grab. Oh yeah, and the body? It belongs to the guy who swallowed the slug thingy back in 1959. Though Chris and J.C. don't actually remove the body themselves, it ends up getting loose and wreaking havoc on the fraternity and sorority kids. And now our teen movie has transformed into a zombie flick.
In the middle of all this is Detective Ray Cameron, played by the baddest assest genre actor on the planet - the one, the only, Tom Atkins. Cameron is still melancholy because twenty-five years ago his girlfriend dumped him, went with some other guy, and then got herself axe murdered. Oh yeah, the girl in the beginning used to be his squeeze. He forms an interesting relationship with Chris, who he calls "Spanky," and he's just an all-around whiskey-drinkin', shotgun-wieldin', snark-retortin' hunk of awesomesauce. "Thrill me," he deadpans as he answers the phone. "It's Miller time," he growls just before opening fire on some zombies. And he has possibly the greatest line in the history of film, which was tweaked for one of the movie's taglines.
Cameron: (cheerily) I've got good news and bad news, girls. The good news is your dates are here.
Sorority Girl: What's the bad news?
Cameron: They're dead.
This is all kinds of silly fun, with just enough scary but not too much. There's actual characterization, even in characters that seem like stereotypes. And for genre geeks, there are all kinds of little Easter eggs. Corman University is an homage to Roger Corman. And most of the characters' last names are nods to great horror and sci-fi directors - Cameron, Cronenberg, Romero, Raimi, Landis, Carpenter, etc.
I'll leave you with some of Tom Atkins's greatest hits from this movie. Check out great character actor and Roger Corman staple Dick Miller (watching this again, and being in the middle of filling out my BNAT application, I kind of squeed at the sight of him) at around 5:20, when Atkins asks him for a flame thrower.
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