Long before Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, Scream, and every other post-modern scarefest designed just as much for cinephiles as gorehounds, a less celebrated horror comedy treaded that fine line between self-aware and full-blown parody. Now available on 4K UHD/Blu-Ray, it’s the perfect time to revisit Night of the Creeps’ many meta charms.
Taking the director’s chair for the first of sadly only three occasions, Fred Dekker (Monster Squad, Robocop 3) wastes little time setting the monster mash tone. In the prologue alone, a possessed E.T. on a budget alien shoots a canister at planet Earth circa 1959. Then, briefly switching the action to black and white — a color palette Dekker had wanted throughout the entire movie — two college students’ romantic date is rudely interrupted by the murderous slug-like creatures sent from deep space. Oh, and then a deranged slasher enters the fray just to ensure neither party makes it out of Lovers Lane alive.
“It’s an odd movie,” Dekker later acknowledged in something of an understatement, having touched upon everything from the Ed Wood-esque sci-fi to the Psycho-inspired slasher within the first 10 minutes. And things only get more unhinged when Night of the Creeps hurtles a quarter-century forward to that good old staple of the ‘80s flick: the rowdy frat house.
Here, geeky best friends Chris (Jason Lively, hot on the heels of National Lampoon’s European Vacation) and J.C. (Steve Marshall) — the latter with an unspecified disability that, notably for the time, isn’t treated as an issue — attempt to join Corman University’s Beta Epsilon fraternity during pledge week. But to gain entry, and more importantly, impress the apple of Chris’ eye, Cynthia (Jill Whitlow), they must steal a body from the nearby cryogenics lab and dispose of it at a rival sorority. So far, so Porky’s.
The monochromatic calm before the storm.
Unfortunately for the two nerds, their frozen corpse of choice happens to belong to the slugs’ first victim from 27 years earlier. Upon thawing, it turns murderous and unleashes a torrent of the critters from its severed head, so another long-standing and very much alive member of the community is assigned to the case.
With a resume including The Fog, Creepshow, and Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Tom Atkins inevitably steals the horror show from the moment his no-nonsense detective Ray Cameron utters his famous greeting, “Thrill me.” In proof of just how cool the movie knows the character is, he’s introduced in a bathrobe-clad, poolside dream sequence surrounded by an army of scantily dressed women. It’s little wonder Atkins has named Night of the Creeps as his favorite project.
It’s Cameron who gets most of the quotable lines as he digs deeper into all the paranormal activity. “Corpses that have been dead for 27 years do not get up and go for a walk by themselves!” he reasonably states, while “What is this? A homicide, or a bad B-movie?” is one of the many zingers said with a knowing wink.
Tom Atkins as man’s man Detective Ray Cameron.
You could have happily sat down to watch a Cameron spin-off had such a proposition not been tragically thwarted. For after several further sluggish homicides – including poor J.C., who provides the film’s emotional crux with a heartfelt goodbye letter to his BFF – the film lurches into Night of the Living Dead territory as a horde of mollusk-filled zombies descend upon fraternity row. And in a heroic self-sacrifice, Cameron decides to blow up the infested basement source... while still in it.
What happens next depends on which version you see. Despite a relatively limited budget at his disposal, Dekker shot two endings. In the theatrical ending, Chris finally gets the girl in front of the blazing house, only for Cynthia to get pounced on by a slug-mouthed dog. The original, meanwhile, gives Cameron a little more (undead) screentime as he staggers outside, still with cigarette in tow, before his brains turn to mush. The film’s opening spaceship then hovers in the night sky, presumably with the intention of discovering the damage they’ve caused.
These alternate endings further exemplify how Dekker made a little go a long way. Night of the Creeps always looks the part, whether in its monochromatic homage to the golden age of sci-fi horror or during its inspired opening credits in which its title slowly forms out of an amorphous blob. Most of the practical effects still hold up today, particularly the way the slugs slither around quicker than Carl Lewis.
He’s behind you.
And like the following year’s similarly gleeful The Monster Squad, it’s clear Dekker has a genuine affection for the source material. All the characters, for example, are named in honor of the horror filmmakers who have gone before him: see Chris Romero, J.C. Hooper, Cynthia Cronenberg. While the mainstream might not have appreciated his cinematic love letter — the film made just $591,000 at the box office — it's deservedly found an enthusiastic audience in the decades since.
The new 4K Ultra HD/Blu-Ray edition further celebrates the unsung hero’s work with a bonus special feature titled “A New Breed of Terror.” Fans can also immerse themselves in its schlocky world with an audio commentary from actor Suzanne Synder, aka surviving sorority girl Lisa, and longtime fan filmmakers Jackson Stewart (Beyond the Gates) and Francis Galluppi (The Last Stop in Yuma County). Of course, the film itself remains a pure treasure trove for horror aficionados. Thrill me indeed.
