Creepozoids Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Creepozoids Blu-ray Movie Review

Day of the Alien.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman April 16, 2017

Creepazoids may be derivative, but it's "derivative" done fairly well. Full Moon's 1987 film is firmly entrenched in the B-grade arena and plays as an amalgamation rip-off of Day of the Dead meets Alien: a handful of military-trained survivors, escaping from the acid rain and mutants roaming Earth's war-ravaged surface, find shelter in a secret underground bunker but quickly find themselves hunted down, one by one, by a dangerous creature, or "creepazoid" as the case may be. The plot is terribly simple and, for this style of film, routine. But Director David DeCoteau, in his second feature and who would go on to direct his share of B-level schlock (and work with Creepozoids star Linnea Quigley on several different films), keeps things rolling with a tidy runtime and makes no allusions that the movie is meant to be anything more than quick, disposal entertainment. Kudos to a director who knows his material and keeps it in line.

The Survivors.

The year is 1998. It's been six years since the nukes fell. In the radioactive aftermath, all that remains are small bands of survivors with little hope of ever leading a normal life. Their goals, ahead of even securing food and water, include escaping the surface where acid rains and mutated creatures rule the day. Several such survivors -- Bianca (Linnea Quigley), Kate (Ashlyn Gere), Butch (Ken Abraham), Jesse (Michael Aranda), and Jake (Richard L. Hawkins) -- stumble upon an underground facility that seems like the perfect hiding spot away from all of the dangers that devastate the surface. They quickly come to realize that their sanctuary was once a secret government lab, home to a devastating, disgusting creature that's thirsty for blood.

Creepozoids needs little review. It's a simple film where various individuals are hunted by a menacing creature while in a confined space and under external duress. The stresses of survival mount even before the body count begins to rise. The film doesn't go into much visual depth in its recreation of the apocalypse; prior to entering the underground facility, the survivors sneak about old alleyways and others locations that don't exactly scream "end of the world," but such is merely window dressing en route to the more interesting bits to follow. The underground facility doesn't lend itself to a particularly creepy atmosphere. It's dark, maybe a bit dank, but nothing out of the ordinary. What few props there are -- guns, mostly -- look cheap, but the movie overcomes. The filmmakers spend much of the budget on the creature, which is appropriately slimy and dark. It takes an interesting twist at the end, appearing much more grotesque but at the same time much more familiar, an effective combination that cranks up the creepy factor and raises the intensity by a bit.

Still, and despite its straightforward production design, the film plays out well enough. It's efficient and lean, diverting for a little gratuitous T&A in a few spots but keeping things flowing with plenty of slimy creature effects, gore galore, black slime, laser blasts, and shrilly music. It's all in good 80s schlock fun. It's light on its feet, doesn't pretend to be more than crude entertainment, and the performances are reflective of the movie's roots: effective but hardly groundbreaking. The cast is good enough at peering into dark areas, screaming, writhing about, and getting covered in various substances. They're all good sports, and the result is a quality little late-night Horror flick that, even as it's a rip-off of other films, works well enough on its own merits.

Creepozoids Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Creepozoids' 1080p transfer comes "remastered in 16x9 widescreen &...digitally restored from original 35mm camera negative." While it's not the prettiest presentation on Blu-ray -- print deterioration is commonplace -- Full Moon's latest delivers a satisfying, largely filmic image. Grain retention is continuous, sometimes fine, sometimes a little soupy, but by-and-large the image enjoys a quality presentation. Details range from "acceptable" to "excellent," usually favoring the latter's side of the scale. Clothing and facial textures are fairly robust, as are creature effects. Backgrounds tend to be a little less sharp. Colors are fine, a bit dank and fairly neutral but adequate for the film's darker, bleaker visual style. Black levels are fairly strong, rarely going too pale and never crushing out finer detail. Skin tones appear neutral. Compression artifacts are few and far between. For a low-budget 80s film, it's hard to complain too much; this is another solid release from Full Moon. Note that the original aspect ratio is listed as 1.37:1 on IMDB; it was more than likely photographed at ~1.78:1 and cropped for the VHS; the Blu-ray image appears to offer the original, filmed aspect ratio, or close to it.

Creepozoids Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Creepozoids features a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. There's never significant, and rarely even minor, surround engagement, but the front end is appropriately wide. Musical delivery pleases, playing with quality stretch to the sides, solid baseline clarity, and a surprisingly rich subwoofer accompaniment. Various action scene crashes and effects are sometimes lost to the music, but things like laser blasts and the most prominent screams and bits of mayhem play with decent clarity and stability. Dialogue lightly reverberates and enjoys a naturally tinny sensation when the group of survivors are essentially speaking into a small metallic crawl space. Basic dialogue delivery is fine, center focused and largely well prioritized, though it does go unexpectedly tinny for no reason on a couple of occasions; the 47:30 mark is a good example.

Creepozoids Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Creepozoids contains an excellent commentary track, a brief image gallery, and some trailers.

• Audio Commentary: Director/Co-Producer David DeCoteau delivers a brand new commentary. He states that he hasn't seen the movie in a couple of decades and offers plenty of anecdotes -- including the story of the first character who appears in the film -- and moves on to discuss his crew, casting, visual effects, stories from the shoot, and much more. This is a terrific track that's fun, insightful, and packed with detail about the film and the movie world that existed around it at the time of production. A must-listen for fans of retro B movies.
• Photo Montage (1080p, 2:12): A collection of stills from the shoot, set to music (the same music that plays over the main menu screen). The images auto-advance.
• Trailers: For Creepozoids (480i, 1:53), Ravenwolf Towers (1080p, 1:40), Killjoy Psycho Circus (1080p, 1:50), Puppet Master 2 (1080p, 2:07), Puppet Master 3 (1080p, 2:16), Head of the Family (1080p, 1:48), and Spectres (1080p, 1:30).

Creepozoids Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Creepozoids can't be confused with creativity, but it's a decent schlock rip-off of more iconic films to come before it. The cast is appropriately enthusiastic, the creature effects are decent, and the movie maintains a quick pace that leaves out any and all filler beyond a juicy shower scene. It's classic Empire Pictures, which means it's B-grade cinema done right; today's bottom-feeders could definitely learn some lessons from these movies. Full Moon's Blu-ray is by no means spectacular, but the 1080p video is fair for a budget production, the lossy 5.1 track squeezes out some good detail, and a couple of extras are included. Recommended.