Considering Fred Dekker wrote “House” and
“Night of the Creeps” in the same year, and later went on to pen “The Monster
Squad” the next year, it’s pretty strange and kind of heartbreaking that after
such a strong start, he’s only been involved with a handful of other projects,
one of which was the third “Robocop”.
Also “Ricochet” with Denzel Washington?
Bizarre. Let’s let Lovelock and
Starkwell enjoy his best known work.
[...]
[Chase scene involving naked alien midgets.]
Starkwell: For such an advanced species,
with all the space travel and whatnot, you’d think they’d have pants.
Lovelock: I’m thinking nudity is the next
evolutionary step.
Starkwell: No. Wrong.
Please pt your pants back on.
[...]
The movie gets going pretty quickly, in
black and white, in the fifties. There
is a story circulating about a psycho killer on the loose. Two teens go to investigate something that
flew down from the sky. Something
happens to Johnny when he finds the thing from the sky, and the psycho killer
kills the girl. Then we flash forward to
the present day (a.k.a. 1986)… and let me tell you, the eighties are in full
swing. We are introduced to our team of
nerds (the good guys) named J.C. and Chris.
Chris is “in love” with the girl, Cynthia, that he just saw for the
first time ever.
[...]
[Chris decides that if they join a
fraternity, he might have a chance with her.]
Starkwell: For nerds, they’re not very
smart.
Lovelock: Good at math, dumb at girls.
[...]
The frat brothers ask them to steal a
corpse. They manage to get into a super
secret lab where they have Johnny’s corpse cryogenically frozen.
[...]
[They thaw out dead Johnny.]
Lovelock: So, they’re not only able to get
into a super secret lab, but they figure out how to thaw out the science
experiment.
[...]
They discussed how dumb this was, for a
while, but then we are introduced to Tom Atkins’ character and his “THRILL ME”
tagline. Lovelock stood up and said
THRILL ME and did a roundhouse kick with a huge smile on his face. Zombie
Johnny stumbles upon Cynthia’s sorority house and then his face splits open and
a bunch of slugs shoot out of his body and slither away.
[...]
[All in the span of five seconds we get
everyone’s last names… Cynthia Cronenberg, Chris Romero, James Carpenter
Hooper, and Detective Landis…]
Starkwell: Five references just like that?
Lovelock: Makes me want to start over and
see if we missed any.
[The janitor is named Miner, as in Steve
Miner, as in the guy who directed “House” that Dekker wrote.]
[...]
Cynthia goes to find Chris and J.C. and
tell them that she saw the dead body up and walking. Meanwhile, the outbreak is in pretty full
swing, and more dead bodies with exploded heads and slugs start cropping up. Then J.C. gets SLUG POSSESSED. Also, apparently Tom Atkins killed the psycho
killer back in the fifties and buried him.
[...]
[Psycho Killer erupts from his burial
through and old woman’s floor, still wielding his axe, and kills the old
woman.]
Lovelock: That. Was.
Awesome.
Starkwell: Admittedly, that is one of the
strongest rise from the grave scenes I’ve seen in some time.
[Atkins goes to the old house, shoots the
Zombie Psycho Axe killer in the head with a shotgun and his head explodes into
slugs.]
Lovelock: I can’t help but wish for longer
zombie content.
[They then show sorority girls showering
and washing their boobs, getting ready for the formal.]
Starkwell: More boobs than zombies? Pretty weak, if you ask me.
Lovelock: I wasn’t asking you. Still, while I appreciate dem boobs… yeah, I
wish the Axe Zombie had a longer run.
[...]
J.C. left Chris a message, detailing that
he was possessed, that heat or fire seems to kill the slugs, and that he was
heading to the furnace to incinerate himself.
[...]
[Chris finds dead J.C. with a bunch of
charred slugs.]
Lovelock: Wait… he’s fucking dead?
[Lovelock cries.]
Starkwell: This movie just got real adult
real fast.
Lovelock: I’d like it go back to juvenile,
with zombies and boobies… I don’t want J.C. to be dead.
[...]
[Tom Atkins goes to get a flame thrower
from the department.]
Starkwell: The cops have flame throwers?
Lovelock: There’s a dead dog walking around
shooting slugs into peoples’ mouths. I
think we can buy a little policeman flame thrower.
[...]
Then Chris teams up with Atkins. They find zombie Brad, shoot his head and
flame throw the slugs as they explode out of his head. It’s fucking amazing. The sorority house is surrounded by zombies,
and Chris, Cynthia and Atkins fight them off.
Atkins spouts out some SERIOUS one liners and Starkwell and Lovelock
high five and then Lovelock does a spin dance move and then the splits.
[...]
[Chris kills a zombie with a lawnmower.]
Starkwell: And here I thought that “Dead
Alive” did that first.
Lovelock: You learn something new every
day.
[...]
Atkins finds the slug hive and blows the
whole fucking place up, and sacrifices himself.
Following this, Lovelock let out a somber “thrill me” while bowing his
head. The movie ends with a burnt zombie
falling over next to a cemetery exploding slugs towards the graves… and a huge
spaceship surveying the are.
[...]
Lovelock: So… to be continued?
Starkwell: No one noticed that enormous
spaceship?
Lovelock: The aliens were like, midgets…
maybe the spaceship is really small.
Starkwell: You’re offensive.
[...]
Great movie.
Consider us all thrilled.
