Movie Review- `Creepers' is so awful it'll probably drive you buggy
The Atlanta Journal and The Atlanta Constitution - November 20, 1985
Author: RINGEL, ELEANOR, Eleanor Ringel Film Editor: STAFF
When people ask me why I like a movie like "Nightmare on Elm Street," I try to tell about a movie like "Creepers." The former reminds us that hack-'em-ups can be done well; the latter reminds us that most of them are not.
For about 90 minutes, "Creepers" skims off all that is brutal and ugly in so many music videos - screaming girls, screaming rock score, disconnected images, disconnected bodies. It does offer one indelible image that neatly sums up the entire slasher genre: a chimpanzee wielding a straight razor. However, I'm not certain this symbolism is intentional.
The heroine is Jennifer (Jennifer Connelly), a matinee idol's daughter who's been shipped off to a boarding school in Switzerland. "It's a very unusual area," says one of Jennifer's new teachers. "People call it the Swiss Transylvania."
Hmm . . . wonder if Reagan and Gorbachev know that.
But vampires in lederhosen aren't what's creeping around in "Creepers." Instead, it's "The Hellstrom Chronicle" meets "Friday the 13th." You see, bugs are batty over Jennifer and look after her the way the rats looked after Willard.
She could use some looking after, because there's a homicidal maniac lurking near the school who's already killed several girls about Jennifer's size. Naturally, Jennifer is scared, but not too scared to stop running around the Swiss-Transylvanian countryside by herself, preferably after dark.
After a number of manglings and dismemberings and a few dull dialogue scenes (in one, Jennifer sexually arouses a stink bug), there's the final showdown: insane killer vs. insect cavalry.
Let's hear it for the fruit fly.
"Creepers," which was directed by a mad Italian named Dario Argento of "Suspiria" fame, is so fruit-loopy that I would unhesitatingly recommend it to connoisseurs of so-bad-they're-good movies. Anyone else will most likely leave the theater looking for the nearest can of insect repellent. Unfortunately, there's nothing to spray on repellent movies such as "Creepers."
Creepers:A horror movie starring Jennifer Connelly and Donald Pleasance; directed by Dario Argento. Movie Guide: code rating, R; sex, none; violence, extreme; nudity, none; language, some profanity.
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