Night of the Creeps

Saw Night of the Creeps, a fun movie which obviously inspired Slither (hat tip Stephen for pointing it out!)  This one is less about small-town America, and more about the college Greek life of the 80s.  As with Slither however, this film follows slug-like, parasitic creatures who make the dead to walk.  This one is way campier however.

The main characters here are teen freshmen, looking for girlfriends and generally for a good time.  Whereas most films cast 30-somethings as "teens" these seem like actual, uncertain children.  They're paired up with a grizzled goofy cop who goofily wants to kill himself.  That character is very strange.  He's written like a hard-boiled, alcoholic monster but is played like Oscar from the Odd Couple: grouchy but more avuncular than mean.  I feel that part was miscast, but then maybe it wouldn't be as fun if there were a sincerely depressed central main character.

Anyway, this film lampshades itself a lot more.  Characters are named Romero and Cronenberg, old ladies watch Plan 9 From Outer Space, and the cop character says things like "what is this, a crime scene or a B-movie?"  Delicious!  Like I say, this is much goofier, much more campy.  The climax takes place not at prom (college remember) but at a prom-like "formal dance".  There's some great scenes of a girl in a prom-dress wielding a flamethrower.  It's not Tarantino-levels, but it's plenty self-indulgent.

I liked the movie okay.  I was worried I'd be annoyed at the teenage main characters but they seemed believably out of their depth and never became the obnoxious Buellers that they might have been.  It's a little dubious at parts (we open on the extremely dubious back-story of the parasites, with baby-like aliens shooting them into space) but it's a fairly fun romp.  It also has a lawn mower, predating Braindead by 4 years!  Also also, I think the roommate is supposed to be kind of bro-mantic, but I read him as sincerely gay, which made me happy.