Night of the Creeps (1986)

College freshmen Chris and J.C. (Jason Lively, Steve Marshall) are trying to join a fraternity and are given the initiation challenge of stealing a body from the morgue. In attempting to do this, they unfreeze a cryogenically-frozen body that was inhabited by parasitic alien slugs in 1959. Now the alien slugs are free and attacking the college campus, turning people into zombies. After his friend is killed, Chris tries to stop the slugs & zombies with the help of a detective (Tom Atkins) whose tragic backstory ties into the alien attack in 1959.This terrific '80s horror comedy from Fred Dekker is one of the most underrated movies from that decade. Steve Marshall is great fun as the handicapped best friend of 'the hero.' He gets many of the movie's best lines. Jason Lively and beautiful Jill Whitlow are both good. Allan Kayser (Bubba from "Mama's Family") is the Zabka-esque jock villain. The movie's highlight is Tom Atkins, who gives a memorable performance as the tough and sarcastic detective. The movie's filled with in-jokes and references that genre fans will enjoy. The movie itself is a sort of homage to classic B sci-fi/horror flicks of the '50s. By the way, in one scene Jill Whitlow is making cookies or something in the kitchen with her sorority sisters. She drops a wooden spoon and kicks it under the refrigerator. Then she picks it up and proceeds to put it right back in the bowl. Eww, how gross is that? That made me want to vomit far more than any of the movie's special effects! Give it a shot and I'm sure you'll agree it's great fun and years ahead of its time. Any movie with a Dick Miller cameo can't be that bad.

Two students named Chris (Lively) and J.C. (Marshall) pledge a fraternity so Chris can make points with his dream girl Cynthia (Whitlow). The fraternity jocks have no intention of letting the geeks join them, but set them up for a prank that results in them freeing a cryogenic ally frozen zombie from 27 years ago that has alien slugs still alive in it. The slugs quickly multiply on campus as they enter the victim's mouth and incubate in their brains until their hatched. A radical police detective named Cameron (Atkins) who has connections to the case from years ago is called in to get to the bottom of it. It isn't long before students are turned into zombies and our rag tag team must figure out how to stop and kill them. This fun film is a great mix of Sci-Fi and horror done with tongue in cheek from first time Writer/Director Fred Dekker. Dekker fills this movie with everything a fright film fan can want. He starts by making his characters very real. The friendship between Chris and J.C. is real and believable and credit has to be given to the actors for pulling this off in such a fashion. When Chris discovers slugs may have taken over his best friend we truly believe and feel his pain. The over the top smart talking detective played by Tom Atkins is a delightful mix of attitude and humor, and is probably Atkins best genre roll. Atkins shines in a role he seems born to play as he answers to anyone with the memorable line "Thrill me". The film has a fun campy side that is purely intentional, but boasts some excellent make up effects and delivers some great gore moments. Not overly scary, but well made and executed with genre fans in mind, Night of the Creeps will keep a smile on your face throughout and you will have a ton of fun watching it.

A vessel containing an intergalactic experiment from an alien spaceship arrives on Earth. Meanwhile, a young couple is making out in their car near where it lands. The guy, after hearing the strange noise it made, goes to investigate. The girl stays behind and is killed by an escaped mental patient with an axe. The guy finds the vessel, which opens up and frees an alien slug. The slug then enters his body through the mouth and takes control of his brain. Thirty years later, Chris (Jason Lively) and J.C. (Steve Marshall) are two college students who, while trying to impress a beautiful young co-ed named Cynthia (Jill Whitlow), are hazed into leaving a dead body on the sorority house doorstep. They only get as far as the morgue where they find a frozen corpse, actually the young man from before, and accidentally thaw him out along with the parasite in his brain. Soon the alien slugs multiply and start taking control of all the students around campus, resulting in a terrifying zombie crisis. Chris and J.C. join forces with the one liner spitting Detective Ray Cameron (Tom Atkins) and must now fight to put an end to this threat from beyond the stars! This is one of the greatest horror films I've ever seen and it sickens me how little known it is. This movie has all the right ingredients for B-movie greatness and is one you will want to watch over and over again. All the characters here really fleshed out and three dimensional. Ray Cameron, played by the always great Tom Atkins, is hilarious and steals every scene he's in. He's easily one of my favorite horror protagonists ever. I just loved him! Jason Lively as Chris makes for a great hero as well and gave a very grounded and credible performance. I could go on and on about the acting but what really makes this movie so perfect is the intricate premise of alien slugs taking over human bodies and making them into mindless zombies. It's like a clever tribute to the sci-fi monster movies of the 50's but with an 80's twist. Another cool treat for horror fans like myself is that most of the characters are named after great horror directors (such as Carpenter, Raimi, Cronenberg, etc.). Night of the Creeps was definitely made for people who love this sort of thing and I applaud the filmmakers for that. I could write an entire novel about what makes this film so great but I'll go ahead and conclude this review by telling you to check it out immediately. You will not be disappointed!

Fred Dekker directs this horror comedy about a pair of fraternity pledges who thaw out a cryogenic frozen body of a college student from 1959. Turns out, he had been infected by an alien parasite from a crashed UFO experiment, and now reanimated, infects the entire campus, turning students into zombie-like creatures who threaten to infect the world.Highly contrived and over-the-top film has appealing performances from Jill Whitlow and especially Tom Atkins as the investigating detective, but otherwise is absurd and crass, with little else to recommend it, though it is a cult classic.