You know it’s a throw-back to the old 50s horror movies when it starts out in 1959, and in black in white. Nice intro that then skips ahead to 1986, and all the glorious color that decade had. Almost too much so, that’s why the 90s were much drabber. So much drab. And flannel shirts. And heroin. See? See what happens when your brains are on drugs?!? Worse drugs happen when you take away the fun ones!!!
First scene? A bit alien. Then onto a typical 50s college scene, nice guy picks up a nice gal from her sorority house, they go to Lookout Point. But intsteads of neckin, they get involved with a mad axeman and a fallen meteor, which may be alien related. It’s not for certain, but yeah, double fuckeries. Fast forward to 1986 Pledge Week of the same college town. Wooo Hooo! Git me some Zimas, bitch! Some, well, not really fair to call them geeks, but let’s just say not-fraternity types, get mixed up with a beautiful gal and said fraternity types. Good intentions through a fraternity prank goes completely awry. Local detective and the police get involved. Dead pets get involved. Dead people get involved. Pretty much everybody gets involved.
This is a fun little horror flick, from the cheezy 50s stereotypes to the cheezy 80s stereotypes. Surprisingly good practical effects done with the, shall we say, infestations that burst forth. Dialogue has some nice tongue-in-cheek lines and horror genre name-drops up the wazoo. Mixes the serious with the ridiculous. Is it the best plot ever written? Naw. But Entertainingly told and decently paced. James “Guardians of the Galaxy” Gunn did a nice little update to this in 2006 with Nathan “Mal Reynolds” Fillion as the main protagonist in a movie called Slither, absolutely in the same vein. This one was better though, because it was first. Director Fred Dekker did a similar feat with The Monster Squad, then pretty much killed any last vestige of anything good in the koontery known as RoboCop 3. Why?! Why, Fred?!? We’ll always have Paris though, won’t we? And Night of the Creeps.
