This week's VHS is David DeCoteau's
1987 post apocalyptic creature feature Creepozoids.
A band of deserters take shelter in an
abandoned research facility only to discover they may not be alone.
Wrapping up Women In Horror Month, I
decided to watch a movie starring one of the genre's favourite
daughters, Linnea Quigley. Creepozoids was
the first of many of her collaborations with DeCoteau. I
thought I had watched this movie as a teen, but I remembered nothing
if it so it's possible I was confusing it with Shadowzone, the first
Full Moon flick I ever saw. Truth be told, considering how similar
the box art is to 1981's Galaxy of Terror, I'm surprised I didn't get
my wires crossed there either.
Linnea Quigley as Bianca in Creepozoids. |
Even at a lean seventy-two minutes,
Creepozoids still seemed like the bulk of it was the characters
wandering around looking for stuff. It was clearly made on the cheap,
but the money went in all the right places so I can't really
complain. When I say “right places” I naturally mean the effects,
as they were abundant, ranging from hilarious giant
rats to bad-ass mutant babies.
Actually, speaking of rats, Creepozoids
reminded me of Bruno Mattei's Rats: Night of Terror as much as it did
its obvious influence, Alien. Of course, Rats was much more
colourful, sleazy and, what's the word... oh yeah, problematic. As
for that dope mutant baby that just shows up at the end like some
sort of wonderful bonus level, I was racking my brain trying to
remember if it was ever recycled in a later Full Moon production. Maybe Baby Oopsie Daisy from Demonic Toys?
I digress. It was a little hard to get
a handle on what the Creepozoids (technically Creepozoid) were
actually doing in this movie, as their actions and motives were a
little unclear. I mean, sometimes it would kill, sometimes it would
drag characters back to its lair for unknown reasons and sometimes it
would just throw people around Evil Dead style.
As for Linnea Quigley, she lasted a lot
longer than I was expecting. It was even getting to the point that I thought she might mak-- oh wait uh oh, guess not.
Lastly, I just want to make note that this movie's apocalypse
happened in 1992, just five years after this was made. Geez, bleak
outlook, DeCoteau.
Creepozoids is a perfect example of
stuff that was getting cranked out for the horror market in the
mid-to-late eighties. It's by no means a memorable affair, but it has
its moments and was enough to entertain – it certainly made me
laugh out loud a few times – for its perfectly unassuming length.
It's all just part of the winning formula that made Empire and Full
Moon so successful.
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