Moon Over Miami: The Creeps

You know that old expression 'buyer beware?' Well, it should be expanded to include 'renter,' because I have gotten at least slightly burned in the course of trying to find strange and obscure films. How about when I tried to rent the 80s action film Cyclone and got the Italian film about a plane crashed into the ocean called Cyclone? Or there was the time when I tried to get the lost Vincent Price film A Night with Edgar Allen Poe, only to get some low-budget collection of plays titled the same way. The other thing I must learn to watch out for is films by bad/sub-par studios. Today's film was rented out of sheer morbid curiosity, only to learn that it was by Full Moon Studios. I guess I should have realized when the run time was listed as an hour and fifteen minutes. Damn you, Charles Band and your relatives! Oh well, let's just get through this- Lord knows that it will be short. It is...

The Creeps

Our film begins with a man going to a library- dun dun dun! He goes through a long and belabored process to view an original transcript of a book that the library has in stock. That book- Frankenstein! He switches the book with a fake while the young lady is put down by her boss for letting anyone see it. Nice library, huh? He returns the book and leaves, after which her lady boss hits on her by inviting her to a Gloria Steinem reading. Too subtle, movie! Later on, she goes to read the book and discovers the problem. One stupid wipe later and we cut to a video store, where a private detective has his offices in the back. Ha, ha, ha! There's no need for jokes with this set-up! Kill me now. She hires him because he works for cheap and they engage in terrible banter- even to the point where they address the fact that they are making banter. Meanwhile, the fat bad guy plots and plans in his warehouse lair. Despite finding out the man's name, the lady fires our hero for two weeks of no results. That night, the man comes back to view Bram Stoker's Dracula. She holds him hostage with some scissors, but he knocks her out and kidnaps her with the aid of what looks like a dildo/stun gun.

He has her back in his lair and, after more terrible banter, explains that he is going to use his Archetype Machine to bring back Dracula, the Wolfman, the Mummy and Adam (aka Frankenstein's monster)! How does this work? Um...it just does! You got a problem with that?!? Faster than you can say 'convenient,' our hero runs in, knocks out the man, saves the girl and takes back the books. All is not well, however, as the monsters emerge from their chambers...as midgets. No, really. We get an Hispanic version of Dracula that is 3 foot tall and has Gerry-Curl Hair, plus a goatee. The others are close to their material, albeit silly-looking. Also, Dracula is the only one that speaks, but honestly has some screen presence. It makes you wish that he had more lines than, oh, everyone else! It takes a while to explain to him what he is, why he's small and what they need to do to fix it. Basically, they need the original girl back. This is made easier after she refuses to pay our hero and he stops hanging around her. The monsters go to the library, but find her boss there instead. They insist on trying the experiment with her- despite 600 complaints by the scientist- which goes, um, oddly. They strip her down to her g-string (the sole nudity of the film) and open a portal behind her. This causes her to disappear and reappear as...a Valkyrie. I'm not making this shit up, people! Time to try again, I guess!

In a long sequence, the pair (Adam and Mummy) chase our heroine around the library, while the others chase the man. He, naturally, leads them right to the woman. The only problem: the others found her already. What was the point of that?!? Also pointless is the bit where the woman steps on some glass, so, naturally, takes off her shirt and wraps it around the wound. If you ever wanted to see midgets in bad make-up chase a woman in her bra, you are in luck! The duo are captured and prepared for the experiment. I should point out that the scientist again says that the woman must be naked (he made an exception for the g-string before, I guess). Of course, the woman takes off nothing, which does not bother the man. She must have signed that same deal that Sarah Jessica Parker had on Sex & the City. Anyhow, they break loose and put the bad guy in front of the portal. The Valkyrie re-emerges and takes him with her. Okay then. The beasts (okay, just Dracula) ask to be returned to their own world, where they will live forever. We get a scene of our heroes making out, but not before our 'film-nerd' lead refers to Jesus Franco as 'Jess Franco.' The End.

Oy vey, that was bad. It was not the worst horror comedy out there (I'm looking at you, The Cottage). It just painfully low-budget and reliant about terribly-dull characters. Blond librarian and nerdy guy- yawn. The monsters look too good for this movie, which shows where what little money they had went. Another sign is in the credits when they have a '2nd 2nd Assistant Director.' Wow, when you cannot even get your credits right, what hope is there? You can do worse, but you would have to try. There is a certain charm to the monsters working together, but everyone else just kills it. BTW Dracula is played by the same midget guard from Dollman vs. Demonic Toys. Now you're making me think about that movie? Thanks a lot.

Blockbuster Trash enters in another entry. This time, it is a film about soldiers of fortune in Afghanistan. Plus, it has ghosts...sort of. Stay tuned...