Night of the Creeps
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Night of the Creeps | |
|---|---|
 Night of the Creeps movie poster |
|
| Directed by | Fred Dekker |
| Produced by | Charles Gordon |
| Written by | Fred Dekker |
| Starring | Jason Lively Steve Marshall Jill Whitlow Tom Atkins |
| Music by | Barry De Vorzon Stan Ridgway |
| Cinematography | Robert C. New |
| Editing by | Michael N. Knue |
| Distributed by | TriStar Pictures |
| Release date(s) | August 22, 1986 |
| Running time | 88 min. |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $5,000,000 (estimated) |
| Gross revenue | $591,366 (USA) (sub-total) |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Night of the Creeps is a 1986 horror film written and directed by Fred Dekker. Night of the Creeps stars Tom Atkins, Jason Lively and Jill Whitlow. The film is notable as both an earnest attempt at a B-movie as well as a spoof of the genre. While the main plot of the film is related to zombies (its title is a play on Night of the Living Dead), the film also mixes in takes on slashers and alien invasion films.
The classic B-movie Plan 9 from Outer Space is first referenced and then later watched by a character in the film. This is an intentional reference to the fact that the plot of the film is itself similar to Plan 9. Despite a strong cult following, the film has yet to be officially released onto DVD.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Onboard an alien space ship, two aliens feverishly race to keep an experiment from being released. But it is too late and the seemingly possessed third alien they are pursuing has shot the canister into space where it crashes to Earth in 1959. On this night a young college man takes a date to a parking spot where they see a falling star and investigate. Unfortunately, it lands in the path of an escaped criminally insane mental patient. As his date falls victim to the axe-wielding maniac, the boy finds the canister, from which a small leech-like thing jumps out at him and into his mouth.
Cut to 1986. Chris Romero is pining over a love lost, being supported by his handicapped friend J.C. At pledge week, Chris spots a girl, Cynthia Cronenberg, and seems to fall instantly in love. To get her attention, he decides that he must join a fraternity. As a part of their pledge (which is pointless as the frat leader, who is dating Cynthia, has no intentions of letting them join), they must steal a cadaver from the university medical center and place it on the steps of the Phi Omega Gamma house. Chris and J.C. find one in a top secret room that is being kept in a state of suspended animation, but when it grabs one of their arms as they try to move it, they chicken out and run back to their dorm room. Meanwhile, Detective Ray Cameron, a cop that dated the girl killed back in '59 and is haunted by the memories of what he found that night, is called in to the cryogenics lab break-in where there are two bodies - but one missing. The missing body is the one released from its cryogenics tomb, which also happened to be the same boy who found the alien experiment back in 1959. This missing body makes its way back to the same sorority house where he picked up his date 27 years earlier. Evidently residing in the room where his murdered date lived, the walking corpse comes to Cynthia's window where his head splits open and more of the leech creatures fall out and slither across the ground. Called to the scene, Ray finds the body with a large open wound in the face, similar to one that could have been made by an axe.
The next day, Chris and J.C. are confronted by the frat brothers, upset over the fact that they believe they are responsible for the previous night's incident. After surviving their encounter, they are then taken in for questioning by the police. Based on the testimony of a janitor that witnessed them running out of university medical center, "screaming like banshees," they confess to breaking in, but deny taking the corpse out. That night, the attendant found dead gets up from his slab and runs into the same janitor.
After the dead and buried cat of one of the sorority sisters comes back, Cynthia confesses it to Chris and J.C. and goes on about the dead body found at the sorority house. Although both are skeptical of her story about them being zombies, J.C. sees that she is leaning on Chris' shoulder, and leaves the two alone to go to the bathroom, where the now-possessed janitor enters and lets loose more of the slugs.
As Chris walks Cynthia back to the sorority house, he runs into Cameron who has overheard the entire story. Back at Ray's home, the two talk about their high school sweethearts. Ray's is more elaborate as he goes on about how they broke up and he became a cop and how he was called out to the site where she had been hacked up by a lunatic. He goes on to tell of how he tracked down the escaped patient, killed him and buried him... in the same spot on which the House Mother's cottage now sits. Just then, Ray gets a call where the House Mother has been hacked up to death by the axe-wielding corpse that broke in through the floor. The killer is finally tracked down and cornered by the police, but numerous gunshots have no effect. Cameron then takes his shotgun and blows its head off, which releases more of the little creeps.
The next night, everyone is getting ready for the formal when Chris notices a tape recorder on which J.C. has recorded a posthumous message to his friend, telling him that one of the things has incubated in his brain and that he had discovered, after lighting one with a match, that heat can destroy them. Chris then runs into the boiler room, where his friend has told him he was headed, actually walking there, in an attempt to kill those inside him. Chris then shows up at Ray's place, which Ray has sealed up, and he fills him in. After grabbing his gun and turning off the gas, he takes Chris to a police armory to get a flamethrower. They come to the sorority house just as Cynthia is breaking up with Brad who has become possessed. After killing him, the Delta frat brothers show up - despite having been killed in a bus crash. While Chris and Cynthia team up with shotgun and flamethrower to destroy the dead outside, Cameron does likewise inside. After stopping the horde, Chris spots more slugs racing across the ground that are headed into the house's basement. Cynthia remembers that this is where specimen brains are being kept. When they go down below, they find Cameron, tape across his mouth, prepping a can of gasoline. They also find the creatures gathered in a huge swarm in the corner. Cameron begins counting down as he splashes gasoline everywhere. Cynthia and Chris turn and run out of the house, counting down in sync with Cameron. Cameron fills the basement with gas and just as some of the parasites leap at him, he flicks his lighter and the house goes up in a fiery explosion. Watching the sorority house burn, Chris and Cynthia share a kiss.
[edit] Endings
There are two versions of the film's ending. The version tagged onto the theatric and subsequent VHS release ends with Chris and Cynthia watching the sorority house burn down when the dead dog returns. The scene ends when the dog opens its mouth and a slug jumps out at the camera (and presumably infecting Cynthia).
This was not what Dekker intended, however. The ending he wanted: the scene of Chris and Cynthia standing in front of the burning sorority house moves to the street where cop cars race down the street. We then see the charred and zombified Cameron shuffling down the street when he suddenly stops and falls to the ground where the slugs scamper out and head into a cemetery. However, the spaceship from the beginning of the film has returned with the aliens intending to retrieve their experiment.
The latter ending wound up never making it when Dekker made the admitted mistake of showing it to the studio before the effects were done. Not impressed with what they saw, they requested a different ending that became a cheap scare. Dekker's original ending has been seen in some television broadcast versions of the film, and is available on bootleg DVD copies being sold on eBay.
[edit] Soundtrack
- The Platters - "Smoke gets in your Eyes"
- The Diamonds - "The Stroll"
- Sandy Nelson - "Teen Beat"
- Preston Epps - "Bongo Rock"
- Paul Anka - "Put your Head on my Shoulder"
- Intimate Strangers - "Let Go"
- C-Spot Run - "Nightmares"
- Jane Wiedlin - "Blue Kiss"
- Stan Ridgway - "The Big Heat"
- Stan Ridgway - "Drive, She said"
- Intimate Strangers - "In the Wilderness"
- Intimate Strangers - "Flame On"
- Lorette and the Signals - "Leave this Girl Alone"
- Intimate Strangers - "Deliverance"
- The Charm Kings - "Caught up in the Crossfire"
- Christina Criscione - "You Got Me Thinking Twice"
[edit] Trivia
- The six main characters share their names with seven horror movie directors:
- Christopher Romero (George A. Romero)
- James Carpenter Hooper (John Carpenter) and (Tobe Hooper)
- Cynthia Cronenberg (David Cronenberg)
- Det.Ray Cameron (James Cameron)
- Det.Landis (John Landis)
- Sgt.Raimi (Sam Raimi)
- The movie the house mother is watching on TV is Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959).
- Graffiti on the wall of the men's room where J.C. is trying to escape a number of slugs reads, "Go Monster Squad!". The Monster Squad (1987) was also directed by Fred Dekker.
- The movie has been remastered in HD and can be seen on Monsters HD (part of the VOOM networks), Showtime HD and HDNet Movies.
