Writer/director Fred Dekker brought us one of the best and most fondly remembered films of the 80s generation, The Monster Squad. But before he tackled the famous faces of evil, he set out to turn the teenagers-in-peril horror movie on its head and make Tom Atkins the king of badass cops with this 1986 classic. Relatively obscure, but never forgotten by those who've had a chance to see it, Night of the Creeps is one slice of nostalgia missing from everyone's DVD shelf.

The film begins in 1959 when two naked alien midgets try to stop another naked alien midget from flushing a tub of experimental something-or-other out into space. They are too late of course, and the tube lands somewhere near a college campus. While out on a date, two kids see the object travel through the sky like a meteor. The boy goes off to track it down, leaving the girl to fend for herself in the car. She is slaughtered by an axe-wielding maniac, but that's a useless subplot and I won't go into it here. Anyway, the boy stumbles upon the tube, apparently undamaged, and as he examines it, the glass case cracks and a slug-like creature flies into his mouth!

Flash forward to the 80s where we meet our two heroes, Chris and J.C. (as in Christopher Romero and James Carpenter Hooper...get it!?!) They start to believe that the only way to attract girls is to join a frat, and decide to pledge the biggest frat on campus. To become one of the gang, they must find a corpse and drop it in front of the girl's frat house. Easy enough, they think, and sneak into the nearby science building to do a little searching. By a weird twist of fate, they come across the preserved body of the boy who swallowed the slugs, and free him. Now unfrozen, the boy is your basic zombie, only with an alien slug in his brain. He terrorizes some girls and then his head explodes and dozens of little slugs wriggle off to begin the takeover of earth. Cindy Cronenberg (yes, that's her last name), the girl Chris has the hots for, saw the guy's head pop, and no one will believe her, until J.C. is infected in a public restroom. He finds out that heat will kill the slugs and leaves a message for Chris explaining that, then heads off to the boiler room to die.

We are then introduced to Detective Ray Cameron (played famously by Tom Atkins), who doesn't believe that the dead are actually coming back to life because of alien slugs until his ex-girlfriend's killer (the axe-wielding maniac, of which I mentioned so little about, because it only pays off now) returns from the grave and he has to put a new dent in his head, releasing a bunch of fresh slugs. As prom night roles around Chris and Detective Cameron team up, armed with flame-throwers and shotguns, to save Cindy and the rest of the campus from the slug-driven zombie hoard that is taking over the town. In the end, Detective Cameron finds the slug nest under the girl's frat and blows the house up, unselfishly sacrificing himself to save the world. However, he may not have gotten all the slugs.

You can tell this was a movie made by horror movie fans. Dekker layers the film with movie knowledge and geekery galore. Everything from the 50s sci-fi movie opening (shot in black and white) to the zombie massacre conclusion is satisfying and authentic. The only misstep for me was the characters named after famous horror icons. It's been done before, but I just never liked it. Also, I don't know if making J.C. a crippled kid was intentional or forced upon them (because he really was crippled), but I thought it was a nice touch and/or casting decision. There is an alternate ending to this film, which is much cooler. Cameron's burned corpse walks out onto the street, then falls to the floor as slugs burst from his brain. The slugs head into a local cemetery and just as you're about to say "Oh shit!", the space ship from the beginning appears to save the day. This is a classic horror film that any person, fan of horror or otherwise, will enjoy watching. Tons of blood and guts for everyone, with a dash of characters you actually care about. It isn't Monster Squad (which is referenced briefly as graffiti in the bathroom scene where J.C. dies) but you'll have a blast watching it, if not for the effects, then for Tom Atkin's incredibly memorable one-liner. Thrill me, baby, thrill me!

- Jose Prendes