Tweet
Released by: Full Moon Entertainment
Released on: March, 2017.
Director: Charles Band
Cast: Rhonda Griffin, Justin Lauer, Bill Moynihan, Kristin Norton, Jon Simanton, Phil Fondacaro
Year: 1997
Purchase From Amazon
The Movie:
Anna Quarrels (Rhonda Griffin) is everyone's favorite cliche, the sexy librarian! She works in the rare books section of her city's library where, one day, she's approached by a chubby older guy named Dr. Winston Berber (Bill Moynihan). He lies his way into the rare book room where, once he's been left alone, he manages to pilfer an original manuscript for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, leaving in its place a forgery and making off like the bandit that he is.
Anna figures out what's happened but not before Berber has taken off with the goods. Rather than tell her lecherous lesbian boss, Miss Christina (Kristin Norton), what's happened she instead decides to hire a private detective to get the book back and hopefully keep her job. This PI is David Raleigh (Justin Lauer) and given that he's running his agency out of the video store where he works full time, maybe he's not the most experienced guy in town. Regardless, with some help from Anna he manages to figure out who the thief really is, if not where he's hiding out. In an odd, and rather stupid, twist of fate, the next day Anna's back at work when Berber shows up again, this time hoping to steal a rare version of Dracula. She confronts him but - oops! - he responds by kidnapping her and bringing her back to his secret laboratory. Here he shows off his latest invention, the Archetype Inducer, a device that allows him to create flesh and blood versions of famous literary monsters and madmen!
See, Berber has already managed to bring some of horrordom's most famous monsters to life - but there's only one problem- they've all been reborn in midget form! As such, we get tiny versions of The Mummy (Joe Smith), Frankenstein's monster (Thomas Wellington), the Wolfman (Jon Simanton) and Dracula (Phil Fondacaro) running about doing their master's bidding. Will Berber use the chaste Anna as the virgin he needs for some sort of nonsensical sacrifice or will our bumbling private dick figure things out for himself and save the day?
Also known as Deformed Monsters, The Creeps isn't a high point in Full Moon's output but it's entertaining enough. The monster effects work is pretty fun and Moynihan makes for a remarkably terrible (but terribly amusing) mad scientist. The movie plays things fairly safe by Full Moon standards, sticking to its PG-13 rating and never going too far with the sex and/or violence. The acting here is no great shakes, plenty of stilted line readings and awkward deliveries throughout the movie, and while Rhonda Griffin sure is easy on the eyes her thesping skills are... limited. Still, if no one here is going to win any sort of award for their work in front of the camera, the film's appeal isn't diminished much. Why? Because the main reason to watch this is to check out the midget monsters, led by the always awesome Phil Fondacaro. Phil's been in all sorts of awesome movies in all sorts of genres and he's always a blast to watch. Seeing him strut about here dressed as Dracula (and sporting some seriously stoned looking red eyes!) is a kick.
The story itself is full of holes but it's reasonably quick in its pace and the monster/makeup effects, as mentioned, are pretty solid. This is goofy stuff to be sure, but it's entertaining in its own mindless sort of way.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The Creeps arrives on Blu-ray framed at 2.35.1 widescreen in AVC encoded 1080p high definition and it is, for the most part, a good transfer even if at times there's some crush in the darker scenes. There's a lot of really nice detail here during the lighter scenes, however, and color reproduction is pretty much problem free. Black levels are strong and there are no problems with noise reduction, the film grain is left intact. There isn't any serious print damage, just a few tiny specks here and there, while skin tones look nice and natural. Close up shots look very good, texture is impressive and all in all the image quality is more than decent (if never reference quality) and it would seem to be a pretty accurate representation of the source.
Audio options are provided in your choice of English language Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound or Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo. While the 5.1 mix does some nice things with the score and with some effects work, the foley effects sound very thin and hollow here and the levels aren't quite as consistent. As such, the 2.0 track sounds more natural and fits the movie better, offering better levels, stronger effects and cleaner dialogue. No alternate language options or subtitles of any kind are provided.
The main extra on the disc is an old episode of Videozone, Full Moon's infotainment series that they used to include on some of their VHS releases. This one, which runs just under half an hour, includes some footage from The Creeps as well as some interviews with various cast members. It's promotional in nature the way a lot of the Videozone episodes were, but it's still interesting enough that fans will want to check it out if they haven't seen it already.
Aside from that we get trailers for a few unrelated Full Moon properties (but no trailer for the feature itself), menus and chapter selection.
The Final Word:
The Creeps is no masterpiece but it's an oddly entertaining little B-movie thanks to some cool mini-monsters and some weird set pieces. It's not deep, not even close, and it's ripe with plot holes but you can have some fun with this if you're in the right frame of mind. Full Moon still has yet to embrace lossless audio for whatever reason but the transfer is decent even if it is a bit on the dark side. A decent upgrade for fans.
Click on the image below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
