Night of the Creeps (1986)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s It About: By day the creeps go unnoticed but this night belongs to them! An alien slug experiment gets shot down to Earth where they dine on brains and make zombies in the process.

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• They really ripped of the Creeps font from Creepshow.
• Any time your movie starts off with naked aliens whose faces look like they’re taking the world’s most difficult shit you know you’ve made the right decision.
• The movie starts off in either the American ’50s or modern-day Cuba.
• If you’re going to fool around, maybe don’t do it at Makeout Point where your cop ex-boyfriend patrols.
• As if the creeps landing on Earth isn’t bad enough, now there’s a lunatic axe murderer. If this was what the ’50s were like I’m glad I was born in 2001!
• Pledge Week 1986: Where I guess all the college kids get together and clean furniture?
• Jason Lively had a huge two-year run with European Vacation and this. By the way: National Lampoon’s European Vacation German girl boobs (our #1 search term of all time).
• Chris’s (Jason Lively) handicapped friend JC is inexplicably dressed like Hunter S. Thompson. It is not a costume party. One toke? You poor fool! Wait ’till you see those god damn bats, man.
• Chris is obsessed with this chick Cynthia, and I don’t blame him because she’s even hotter that that German girl’s boobs from National Lampoon’s European Vacation, but he’s such a god damn herb there’s no way she’d ever be interested. Unless some crazy event happens to the college. But that seems unlikely.
• These frat guys look like they have a mean age of 46.
• How many boyfriends does Cynthia have? Room for one more? 😉
• So Chris and JC have to steal a dead body to pledge the Shriners frat and find the guy who got a creep in the mouth in the ’50s. The room is pitch black at first so they have to fumble for a light switch, even though there are literally hundreds of flashing lights on instrument panels all over the room.
• So of course the corpse wakes up and spits a creep into the scientist’s mouth.
• Chris would probably have a better shot at girls if he didn’t wear Cosby sweaters.
• “Thrill me.” Greatest greeting of all time.
• This naked zombie has sure walked a long way without getting noticed.
• Cynthia’s panties are enormous. ’80s girls sure did love full coverage.
• But her boobies are so pert and perky. Something you rarely see in movie boob shots today. Same with the German girl from National Lampoon’s European Vacation.
• Cynthia could have at least given the corpse an old-fashioned before the creeps exploded out of his head.
• I know he’s supposed to be an antagonist but this guy Brad is cool as shit, like our own Brad. And Chris really is a dork.
• All of the famous horror master last names are a great touch. So great that Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2 shamelessly ripped it off.
• “Screaming like banshees!”
• GOD DAMN ZOMBIE CATS.
• Fred Dekker was the man. What happened to you? GOD DAMN YOU, ROBOCOP 3! If I could buy my ticket now for the upcoming Predator sequel by him and Shane Black I would.

• Written in marker in the men’s room wall is “GO MONSTER SQUAD!” YES!! Greatest movie Easter egg ever.
• Poor annoying JC gets a creep up the pants of his crippled leg. Then a creep in the mouth. They should have had it come through a glory hole.
• It really makes zero sense for Cynthia to be interested in Chris at all. She’s too bitchin’ and he’s too much of a spazburger. Unless this is some kind of sorority prank.
• Detective Cameron tells the creepiest story ever about his girlfriend getting chopped up in the ’50s and how he killed her murderer and buried him on the spot where the sorority house now stands. If he had molested Chris at that point it would have seemed like a natural segue.
• It’s cool how the ’50s axe murderer zombie busted up through the floorboards of the living room but that means he would have had to axe through the concrete foundation of the house, then somehow up through the ceiling of the basement.
• This movie really has it all: creeps, zombies, axe murders, aliens, gore, undead animals, boobs, beer, dope, thtolen furthz, everything.
• Bodacious boobies, sorority sis! Almost as nice as National Lampoon’s European Vacation German girl boobs. Or Kirsten Dunst’s nipples. Or an oiled ass massage. Or Pesci Casino vise. Or Sam Elliott mustache. (that covers our top 5 search terms of all time; this will be the most highly viewed post ever!)
• JC has a creep in his brain, so he leaves a tape recorded message for Chris, instead of maybe calling the cops, his parents, going to the hospital, or one last panty raid.
• Chris finds JC’s body in the basement by the furnace with some dead creeps. He should still go to the dance with Cynthia regardless.
• Stray dog spits a creep into Brad’s mouth. So goddamn fantastic.
• Det. Cameron’s preferred method of suicide is filling his home with gas and flicking a lighter? You have a shotgun right there!
• DICK MILLER!!
• That blonde girl from Weird Science! So hot.
• “I got good news and bad news, girls. The good news is your dates are here. The bad news is they’re GREEKS!”
• I have no idea why Det. Cameron says, “It’s Miller time” before he shoots a zombie in the head. It would have made sense if he threw a molotov beer bottle at him. It would have been awesome and made sense if Dick Miller showed up and killed the zombie.
• “These are the slowest moving zombies I’ve ever seen.” – my wife
• “Get out of the house NAAOOWW!” shouts Chris. The most pussily delivered order in movie history.
• So the creeps are all gathered in the sorority basement because there are some brains being stored there, and Det. Cameron is going to blow them up since he’s suicidal anyway. So he counts backwards from 20 to give Chris and Cynthia enough time to get out of the house NAAOOWW, but he’s counting so slowly that Chris and Cynthia really have no idea how much time they actually have left.
• You see, Chris, when you say, “Thrill me” it just doesn’t have the same impact. It’s like Urkel saying, “I’ll be back.”
• Anyway, doesn’t matter since his charred corpse walks out afterward and spills creeps out of his head.
• The last shot is the giant alien ship searching for the creeps, but it’s been 30 years! Get out of Earth NAAAOOOWWW!!

Is It Actually Scary: Not unless you’ve been abducted and brutally probed by little naked aliens.

How Much Gore: There are more heads split open here than when people found out Liberace was gay.

“I thought he just had flair!”

Best Scene: Thrill me.

Worst Scene: I don’t think there really are any bad scenes, but let’s go with this, because A) how stupid can Cynthia be? and B) the zombie dummy head kind of looks like shit.

Any Nudity: Did I mention the boobs?

Overall: Night of the Creeps is just fun from start to finish. There aren’t a ton of down moments, the plot and the deaths just keep moving right along. Tom Atkins carries the show and Jill Whitlow (Cynthia) is a cutie pie, but if there’s one flaw to the movie it’s that Chris comes off as a little too much of a wuss to be a protagonist you really want to root for. It would have been more fun if JC was the hero at the end and hooked up with Cynthia. Or if Tom Atkins played all the male roles. Or if the Monster Squad showed up at the end and Rudy rode off with Cynthia on his bitchin’ dirt bike. Anyway, if you like cheesy ’80s horror/sci-fi that doesn’t take itself seriously and is called Night of the Creeps, you’ll love this. If you’re Jason Lively’s stalker, you’ll have a blast. Also highly recommended to fans of National Lampoon’s European Vacation German girl boobs.

Score: 8.75 thrills (out of 10)