FRENCH FRIES and FULL MOON FEATURES part IX: "The Creeps" and Ore-Ida Star Tater Tots

From the very beginning (1988) Full Moon maintained a distribution partnership with Paramount Pictures. In '95, Paramount backed off as the Direct-to-Video market started to become noticeably less lucrative. And yet, for a moment in the middle of that relationship, there were serious talks about the possibility of Full Moon theatrical releases. (Obviously Paramount backed out of that too.)

However, during the Halloween Season of 1997, Full Moon unleashed The Creeps into a "limited" amount of theaters before its Home Video release that December. This wasn't on a whim - the movie was shot in 2.35 widescreen, and was presented in theaters in 3-D. Every Home Video iteration has been 2-D, and hoo boy does it make for some uncomfortably awkward compositions; long, clumsily blocked takes with no cuts or camera movements make the whole thing feel like you're watching a play. Nevertheless, with Charles Band in the director's chair, it still feels like very much like Full Moon. The plot is weird and demands tons of expository dialogue: after obtaining the original manuscripts of old Horror Novels, a mad scientist is able to bring Count Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, The Wolf Man, and The Mummy into reality. The scientist kidnaps librarian Anna (Rhonda Griffin) because he apparently needs a virgin to make his monster-making machine work -- but she manages to escape in the middle of the process, and so the monsters all materialize as dwarves. And so, we get a kinda Monster Squad premise, but the gimmick is that they're little people (because Full Moon). This does afford studio regular Phil Fondacaro to totally steal the show as Count Dracula, but really it's the draggy actionless scenes that manage to make it more tedious than most of their other productions. However, there are a few moments that take place in a legit video store, and so we get to have extended, uninterrupted views of posters and tapes of all the popular rentals of 1997 (with some expertly placed Full Moon promotions mixed in). 

It's America's 250th Birthday, and predictably, it's the junk food that won't let us forget it. (That is until they figure out how to make air conditioning "Freedom Scented".) Stars and Stripes adorn pretty much everything at the moment, and some modifications are more effective than others - case in point: Ore-Ida Star Tater Tots. Yes, they're just regular tater tots shaped like stars, and no, there's nothing "extra" about them -- at least not in the sense of flavor. But in terms of size and shape and overall impact, I don't see how we can ever go back to the regular cylinder-shaped tots ever again; these are full and robust and, if cooked correctly, crunchy all over. Like seriously, imagine a McDonald's Hash Brown condescend into a compact five-cornered form, and then multiply that into a generous pile of potato paradise. If this is how America tastes, we may be willing to overlook all those other pesky bygone blemishes. 

The Movie: C-

The Fries: A+