Gomez Addams and the Critters Kid!

Poor Scott Grimes. Caught up in the glut of post-Goonies youngster action films, he will forever be known as "that pudgy red-headed kid who saved the day in Critters." But the guy had potential, as evidenced by his performance in the tragically underseen Night Life.

Grimes is the "mild mannered, too smart for high school but trapped there" Archie. He works part time at his uncle Verlin’s (John "Gomez Addams" Astin in a standout asshole role) funeral home. His best friend is the decidedly masculine grease monkey girl, Charlie. As Archie struggles with corpse-handling and unrequited teen love, he must also contend with the constant bullying of the Porsche- cruising "in" crowd led - horrifyingly enough - by an Ian Ziering clone! Life goes from bad to worse for our young hero; he loses his job due to a cruel prank which results in the destruction of his college plans. It seems that things can’t get any worse . . .

. . . Until, due to a violent car crash between a Porsche and a shady-looking tanker truck full of toxic chemicals, he gets his job back. And his bully problems have come to an end, if you get my drift. But, keeping with the tone of the film, things that appear to be good fortune end up going down the drain in record time. At this point Night Life - which has been an engaging black comedy about high school - becomes a full-tilt horror flick. Because the bullies (who have already died around experimental toxins) get STRUCK BY LIGHTNING as well. Anybody who’s watched enough horror flicks knows that experimental toxins, dead bodies, and lightning don’t mix. Before Archie can say Critters, the dead bullies are a group of fast-moving (not to mention utterly indestructible) zombies! The remainder of the film is a well-done and quite tense little slaughter-ama.

I don’t want to give away too much, here, because you’re supposed to want to go out and rent it yourself. Needless to say, this movie surprised me. I first saw Night Life back in 1990 at a twenty-four hour horror movie marathon in Columbus, Ohio. Although I was in a horror flick daze supplemented by extracurricular parking lot activity, I seem to remember the film having more gore than the video version that I recently rented. Still, the film exceeds all expectations. A brisk script, likable characters (except for the ones you’re supposed to hate), good acting, and an attempt at some interesting cinematography despite an obvious lack of budget. John Astin gives such a believable jerk performance that you REALLY want him to die despite the fact that he’s Archie’s uncle. The whole film is sheathed in morbidity - a lot of corpse- wrangling jokes. But the last thirty minutes or so are actually well done, providing effective scares and laughs at the same time.

Scott Grimes went on to get a few TV roles - nothing memorable. The screenwriter of Night Life, Keith Critchlow (who already had the Tom Hanks/John Candy opus Volunteers under his belt), never worked in film again. Director David Acomba also dropped off the face of the Earth after the production of Night Life. While ironic, it is also tragic that such a fun film could also be the last nail in the coffin of so many potentially good filmmakers, actors and writers . . . But their respective career deaths sure did entertain me for two hours before being buried forever in the quagmire of direct-to-video horror!! Give yourself a treat the next time you’re going to rent Return of the Living Dead for the tenth time and check out Night Life instead. It’s zombie-licious!

- Punky McScrubb