Creepers (1985) - * WORST 5 *

Posters of early eighties B-Grade films. It's a double edged sword, so awesome because it's so bad...

Genre: Crime Fantasy Horror Mystery Thriller (Italy)

Starring: Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind; Requiem for a Dream), Daria Nicolodi (Deep Red; Shock)

Directed By: Dario Argento (Demons; Inferno)

Overview: A young American girl with power over insects goes to a Swiss Academy. A killer stalks his prey. The girl uses her power to find the killer.

Acting: Terrible!!! Oh God, classic fromage old school style. The best actor in the whole thing are the recognizable faces of Jennifer Connelly and Patrick Bauchau (The blind oracle of HBO's "Carnivale" Season One), but they hardly make up for the stinky direction. Even a talent like Connelly was warped from time to time, due to Argento's poor direction, or budget, or whatever.
Rating: 3

Cinematography: The end really gores it up. Seriously, this movie actually had me near gagging, I won't ruin the why for you, but let me just say GRAPHIC! Sadly, the entire first half was so poorly edited that it seemed completely chopped up. Also, the version I saw had half the swears edited out. Some of the scenes were classic, behind window or dark corner spying stalker style, like in Black Christmas, but overall nothing truly innovative.
Rating: 4

Script: What script? It looks like Argento said, "You. Do something that completely defies human nature and we'll keep it." The logic eluded me scene after scene. No dynamic whatsoever. Complete amateur dialogue. If this were silent, it would have been touted as a daring and brilliant art house film, but instead, every word spoken threw logic out the window, or added a touch of ridiculous anti-humanity. Utter shit.
Rating: 1

Plot: The plot is so full of holes as to be laughable. People can't be so unlucky as to have mortar crumble right before they step on them. I thought the whole bug-control angle would be well developed, but it only really even comes up three times. As for the vengeful hobo monkey with a straight razor? No, yeah, seriously.
Rating: 3

Mood: The mood, sadly, was chopped up by the terrible editing. The music was also awful. Imagine this: The entomologist is taken out, to the ambulance, murdered, while a crowd is gathered silently watching the horror. All the while, MOTORHEAD is blaring hard-ass biker rock! No! The score brings the mood down by two full points, and the editing by one. As for the actually horror and suspense and creepy characters, their weird motives and everything gore... The end makes up for it all. And it's not just one climax, it's one followed by another, followed by another. Great climactic ending, really, if a little out there.
Rating: 5

All six clones of Jennifer Connelly get together to solve the mystery...

Overall Rating: 32% (Just Plain Creepy!)

Aftertaste: The movie has its place in the archives. Dario Argento and The Goblin (one of the bands that did the soundtrack) are synonymous with horror. I'm glad I saw it, and like I said, that climax was devastatingly gory and head turningly vomit inducing. Honestly if I hadn't have watched it with cult horror fans, it would have been even worse. I think this movie will be more about the good day I spent with my buddies, rather than anything else.