Night of the Creeps (1986)

Written by John Chard on October 21, 2015

What is this? A homicide, or a bad B-movie?

Not exactly what you would call an unknown horror comedy, but there is the distinct feeling that it should be better known. As its cult fan base will attest, this is blast of a movie, a homage to the "B" schlockers of lore. Directed by Fred Dekker, the premise sees some alien beings eject a flask of alien slugs down to earth, which lands at a fraternity campus, something which cause mayhem some years later when a frozen body is disturbed at the medical lab and the slugs are unleashed. Cue infestation that turns people into zombies!

The pic plays up to the clichés of fraternity based movies, with nerds and nudity on tap, all smothered in a gooey horror comedy sauce. One-liners are ripe, the characterisations also, the latter of which fronted by a glorious Tom Atkins as a hard drinking hard - boiled detective with issues and quips ready to be poured out. It's not genius film making, but given the low budget it deserves its cult status, because it never pauses for breath and it's very aware of what it wants to be - and crucially who its target audience is. 7/10