THE DEAD TIMES

RATING:

ZOMBIE RATING:

DESCRIPTION:

When a canister containing a deadly alien experiment crashes to Earth, those infected with canister's slug-like occupants are turned into braindead Zombies, yearning for human brains. Fortunately, the incident is contained but once a couple of grad-students accidentally release a cryogenically frozen corpse - a Creep feeding on his brain and rapidly multiplying within his thawing body -, it does not take long for chaos to descend upon the small college town. Working alongside local law-enforcement, the students battle to defeat the infected before the merciless Creeps run riot across the entire country.

MY VERDICT:

Night of the Creeps is a very strange movie that is sort of similar to many 1980's horror flicks but also completely "out there" with some crazy concepts. The idea of a Zombie virus being caused by an escaped experiment is nothing new but posing it as an alien machination, accidentally set loose on the Earth definitely brings a new, and welcome, twist to things. The fact that you actually see the aliens at the start of the film and that those aliens are practical - not fantastical computer-generated (CG) monstrosities - really brings the crazy concept home and does wonders for the entertainment value of the movie. That said, this zany 'alien' concept combined with Tom Atkins' brilliant portrayal of Detective "Thrill Me" Cameron - the wise-cracking cop with a ruff past and some great dialogue - are, to be honest, the main reasons to watch Night of the Creeps as the later section of the movie quickly dissolves into college life and grad-student bickering, albeit with Zombies. The acting is only reasonable at best and the story does not really go anywhere but it is at least funny as the little black, slug-like Creeps scuttle around or zoom into someone's mouth as they try to scream. There's also a nice bit of tension built up in places - not super-scary stuff, the movie is much more comedy than horror, but enough to keep you on edge. I'd recommend viewing if you like light-hearted horror comedy with a unique, if fairly basic, story. The performance of Tom Atkins alone is enough to set this movie above the more 'down-to-earth' hordes.