Night of the Creeps

Thrill Me.

Detective Cameron: "I got good news and bad news, girls. The good news is your dates are here."
Sorority Sister: "What's the bad news?"
Detective Cameron: "They're dead."

Night of the Creeps is a 1986 horror film written and directed by Fred Dekker. Night of the Creeps stars Tom Atkins, Jason Lively and Jill Whitlow. The film is notable as both an earnest attempt at a scary horror film as well as a comedic spoof of the genre. While the main plot of the film is related to zombies, the film also mixes in takes on slashers and Alien Invasion films.

In 1959, an alien experiment crashes to earth and infects a fraternity member. They freeze the body, but in the modern day, two geeks pledging a fraternity accidentally thaw the corpse, which proceeds to infect the campus with parasites that transform their hosts into killer zombies.

The classic B-movie Plan 9 from Outer Space is first referenced and then later watched by a character in the film. This is an intentional reference to the fact that the plot of this film is itself similar to Plan 9. According to The Other Wiki, the film finally saw release on DVD and Bluray in October 2009.

Tropes used in Night of the Creeps include:

• Aerosol Flamethrower: Detective Cameron quickly fashions one of these after handing off his flamethrower to Chris.
• Aliens and Monsters: The slugs are alien specimens that managed to escape from some alien scientists.
• An Axe to Grind: The Serial Killer whom Detective Cameron confronted in his past.
• Apocalyptic Log: James Carpenter 'J.C.' Hooper leaves an audio recording for his friend explaining how the alien leeches get into your head and incubate before he kills himself such that he doesn't become a zombie.
• Badass: Detective Cameron.
• Ballistic Discount: Heroic example; Detective Cameron points a shotgun in the face of the police armory officer and demands a flamethrower. Needless to say, the officer quickly complies.
• Battle Couple: Chris and Cynthia.
• Berserk Button: When Detective Cameron is surrounded by some zombies, he suddenly spots a photo of his high school sweetheart hanging on the wall. The sight causes him to freak out and empty his revolver into every single zombie.
• Catch Phrase: Thrill Me.
• Fan Nickname: Detective Cameron refers to Chris and J.C. as Spanky and Alfalfa respectively.
• Flash Back: Detective Cameron has a few of these when remembering a old case about a escaped mental patient. They're Deliberately Monochrome, too.
• Girl Next Door: Cynthia.
• Good News, Bad News: Refer to the quote at the top of the page as Detective Cameron warns the sorority house sisters of the impending zombie invasion.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Detective Cameron locks himself in the basement of the sorority house with the slugs and blows it sky-high.

Chris: Detective... thrill me.

• • Before that, J.C., Chris's friend, attempted to lure as many slugs down to the furnace room in the basement, but he dies before he can finish the job.
• Improvised Weapon: Chris, being attacked by zombies, runs into a gardening shed and comes out with... a lawnmower? Getting the engine to start with just one tug of the cord and NO priming, he pivots it towards a crawling zombie, says "Later, dude!", lifts the front wheels of the mower up and rams the spinning blades into the zombie's face.
• Interrupted Suicide: Chris manages to reach Detective Cameron in time at his house where he had planned to kill himself with gas.
• Jerk Jock: Brad.
• Kill It with Fire: The only way to kill the alien slugs.
• Large Ham: Everything that comes out of Detective Cameron's mouth is pure awesome.
• Make-Out Point: Where the axe murders happened.
• Multiple Endings: There are two versions of the film's ending. The version tagged onto the theatrical and subsequent VHS release ends with Chris and Cynthia watching the sorority house burn down when the dead dog returns. The scene ends when the dog opens its mouth and a slug jumps out at the camera, presumably infecting Cynthia.

This was not what Dekker intended, however. The ending he wanted: The scene of Chris and Cynthia standing in front of the burning sorority house moves to the street where cop cars race down the street. We then see the charred and zombified Cameron shuffling down the street when he suddenly stops and falls to the ground, his head explodes and the slugs scamper out and head into a cemetery. However, the spaceship from the beginning of the film has returned with the aliens intending to retrieve their experiment.

• My Greatest Failure: Detective Cameron is haunted by his former high school sweetheart's axe-murder.
• Not a Zombie:
  • Type 1 occurs with the sorority sisters initially failing to realize that there's something seriously wrong with their dates before Detective Cameron steps in to correct their mistake.
  • Type 2 occurs with two police officers cornering the reanimated axe-killer and firing numerous shots at it to no effect before Detective Cameron steps in to correct their mistake. With a shotgun blast to the head.
• Orifice Invasion: The slugs' preferred method of taking over their host.
• Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner: "It's Miller time!"
  • Pre-Mortem One-Liner: "Thrill me, Detective". In this case it is Chris referring to Detective Cameron's impending Heroic Sacrifice.
• Puppeteer Parasite: The brain slugs.
• Raising the Steaks: Zombie cats and dogs
• Revolvers Are Just Better: Detective Cameron's weapon of choice.
• Shell Shocked Detective Detective Cameron
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Wielded by Detective Cameron and Chris to expose the slugs planted in the zombified mooks.
• Spiritual Successor: Slither
• Taking You with Me: Detective Cameron and the slugs in the sorority house basement.
• The Can Hurled Brain Slugs At Him: J.C. is attacked by a zombie carrying slugs when he goes off to take a leak.
• Too Dumb to Live: The sorority's house mother who just sat and stared as the reanimated corpse of the axe-killer breaks through the floor and eventually kills her.
• Turned Against Their Masters: The brain slugs.
• Vigilante Execution: Detective Cameron tracked down the axe-murderer who murdered his high school sweetheart and took a shotgun blast to his head. As it turned out, once was not enough.
• What Could Have Been: Director Fred Dekker originally wanted Elmer Bernstein to score the film. Though Bernstein was interested in scoring the film (and had planned to make it one of his more experimental scores), the studio wouldn't pay him his full salary and Bernstein moved on. Barry DeVorzon ended up scoring the film.
• Zombie Apocalypse: Subverted in that it wasn't much of an apocalypse since the slugs only manage to infect a handful of people, but still.
• Zombie Infectee: A given for the genre, though it's rather impossible for any infectees to hide their condition for long. Happens notably to both J.C. and Detective Cameron.