The Creeps come out at night…

If you make it past the first 5 minutes where the "aliens" are setting up the plot, you might get a good chuckle or two out of Night of the Creeps. The problem with the beginning is that these aliens are obviously little midget people in fat suits running around in a manner that implies they might be searching for the short bus. There is dissension among their ranks, and just before it gets bloody, one of the aliens expels something that looks like a pod from the bowels of the ship. Hhhhmmm......

Break away to 1952. Two college kids are out parking. (Do kids even do that these days?) Typical for B-movie needs, the guy takes off into the woods for a leak. In his absence the chick in the convertible car gets visited by an escaped psycho who axes her to death. While this is happening, the guy in the woods stumbles upon where the alien pod landed. We learn the thing that the alien was carrying is some slug like creature that breaks out of the pod and propels itself into the mouth of the guy.

Fast forward to 1986. Big hair; bad clothes; great music..... ahhhh the memories.......

Here we have college kids trying to fit in and trying to get laid, picking on nerdy kids, and providing gratuitous boob shots that have become a staple of B-movie worthiness. The acting was laughable, the cast was mostly no name actors, the script was so obviously memorized.... all in all, this was turning out to be a GREAT movie!

We see the main boob character, Chris, taking a shine to sorority girl Cindy, who tries to win her over by pledging to a fraternity. His mission? Steal a body from the morgue and leave it at a designated spot on campus.

Now apparently the dude from 1952, the one with the alien slug in his body, was cryogenically frozen and being kept unsafely locked away at said morgue, so when smart boy Chris and his buddy CJ end up unfreezing said dude (hey - it's a body, right?) they discover he isn't really "dead" and run away like the scared little sissies they were. In a matter of a minute, 1952 dude slug-infects the dumb science guy who had him unsafely locked away, then wanders out into the night to wreck more havoc on the town.

Before you know it, the campus is overrun with zombie-inducing slugs and it doesn't take long for them to connect with bodies. Frat bodies. The used up cop on the case, ironically the same cop on the case from 1952, announces their arrival with a classic one liner: "Girls, the good news is that your dates are here. The bad news is that they are all dead!"

Who could have predicted that this movie would turn out to be such a gem? Writer/director Fred Dekker is to thank for this masterpeice, and this movie isn't his only nugget of delight. He actually has a small number of them to his credit.

Things to know about this film ahead of time however (so you on't be disappointed when you see it) are the following:

• The zombies in this film don't eat people. They spew out those damned slug things into your mouth.
• You never find out why the 1952 guy was cryogenically frozen, or if the government ever knew about the slugs or pod or any of it.

Like so many movies I watch, this one is not for everyone. But if you enjoyed Shaun of the Dead or Idle Hands, you will probably love this one every bit as much as I did. Even if the zombies don't eat the nerdy cool kids.