The 80s gave us a handful of truly amazing remakes of films from the fifties. The Thing, The Fly and The Blob were all incredible updates to simple (but effective) horror films from another era, just with modern technology to enhance the story and deliver a series of new shocks that reminded us of those films but packed a whole new punch.
Many consider those films improvements on their source material, but that’s subjective. The 80s also popularized (if not birthed) “meta” horror: films that existed in a world where horror films we already knew and loved existed and played a part in the character or characters’ decision-making.
Why would anyone believe a vampire lived next door to Charlie Brewster in Fright Night when all he did with his free time was watch old Hammer vampire films? How come a pickaxe through the head of a zombie didn’t kill them in Return of the Living Dead? It worked in Romero’s flicks (“You mean the movie lied?”)!
But there was a third trope that the 80s popularized that doesn’t get talked about as much, and we still do it to this day. The “throwback” film. They weren’t remakes. They weren’t exactly “meta”, though knowledge of the era was key. These were movies that by sheer style and writing, felt like a film from the past, told with a modern lens. Films like Gremlins, Tremors, Eight-Legged Freaks and the like are movies indicative of the original The Blob, Tarantula, Invasion of the Body Snatchers that deal with small towns dealing with something horrible events and banning together to solve the issue (or simply survive). One of the best of the decade is Fred Dekker’s Night of the Creeps, a film that even begins in the 50s and an alien threat…that turns into a gory, wholly original, and thoroughly hilarious zombie/slug picture.
Night of the Creeps (1986)
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Chris (European Vacation’s Jason Lively) and his dream girl Cynthia (Porky’s beauty Jill Whitlow) team up with a grizzled detective with a checkered past (Creepshow icon Tom Atkins in a fan-favorite role) to battle the undead when a prank goes terribly awry. Tasked with leaving a corpse from the campus mortuary on a rival fraternity’s lawn as a pledge to Beta Epsilon, Chris and his buddy J.C. (Steve Marshall) defrost a stiff that’s been housed in cryogenic stasis for 30 years – a corpse infected with an alien slug it ingested in the late 50s after a passing UFO dumped them out in a cannister.
Now awake and spit-launching alien slugs all over Corman Campus, the student body becomes infected, turning them into dead-eyed walking corpses in a nasty invasion that will give you the creeps! Writer/director Fred Dekker’s slimy, cranial-exploding, icky alien slug-fest Night of the Creeps is pure, B-Movie mayhem.
From its black and white opening to Atkins’ tired, perpetually unimpressed detective who literally answers calls with a sarcastic “Thrill me” in the hopes the monotony of his job will yield excitement for once, Night of the Creeps oozes with a respect and fondness for invasion films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Night of the Living Dead, all while providing audiences of the era the gruesome kicks they clamored for. With wonderful performances by Lively, Whitlow (who is as badass as she is adorable), and Marshall (the latter of whom is a bonafide scene-stealer, and his tape recorded message late in the film is one of the movie’s most chilling moments), and the perfect horror movie anti-hero in the cigar-chomping, modern-day Sam Spade who prefers a cold beer and a babe in a bikini to a hard whiskey and femme fatale, Tom Atkins’ Detective Cameron would have been a dynamite franchise character to get caught up in multiple monster films, ala The Evil Dead’s Ash. It’s Atkins’ favorite role, and as a huge fan, I’m hard-pressed to disagree.
The make-up and special effects team, which included a young Howard Berger and Robert Kurtzman, is nasty, gruesome, and lots of fun, with split craniums, walking, articulated skeletons, and raging slugs. Combining genuine scares with perfectly timed comedy (not to mention nearly every surname is a throwback to celebrated horror directors, and a sneaky Monster Squad easter egg you should look around for), Night of the Creeps is a mandatory 80s gem to check out, that has since gone on to become a well-deserved cult classic, and Dekker would return to old-school tropes with his next film, 1987’s The Monster Squad, which itself was a throwback to The Little Rascals and The East Side Kids, combined with the classic Universal Monsters.
WALTER PAISLEY SIGHTING: Look for Dick Miller as Walter, this time as a police locker ammunitions clerk.
Home Video
Despite its cult fanbase and popularity on home video, it took a frustratingly long time before Night of the Creeps hit DVD and Blu-Ray, and even then, it wasn’t quite complete. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment definitely showered it with respect. The release contained commentaries, a documentary, deleted scenes, a trivia track, and marketing material…but the film was only released in its Director’s Cut, and not the theatrical/home video version people had grown up knowing and loving. Sure, the original theatrical ending was there as a bonus feature, which was nice, but completists would have liked the option to watch one or the other.
That would finally happen in 2019 when Scream Factory’s Collector’s Edition hit shelves, which ported over all the previous release’s bonus features (except for the Trivia Track, strangely) and gave fans both versions to toggle between. And while a 4K UHD Collector’s Edition was released in 2025, this 2019 release – for my money – is as close to a definitive edition as we’ve got. More on that later, but let’s look at what we have here:
Starting with Disc 1, Night of the Creeps’ Theatrical Cut:
- Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 HD Widescreen
- Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio English Surround 5.1, DTS-HD Master Audio English Stereo 2.0
- Subtitles: English.
- (Archival) Thrill Me!: The Making of Night of the Creeps
- (Archival) Tom Atkins: Man of Action
- (Archival) Deleted Scenes
- (Archival) Theatrical Trailer
Disc 2 contained the Director’s Cut of Night of the Creeps and most of the Bonus Content:
- Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 HD Widescreen
- Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio English Surround 5.1, DTS-HD Master Audio English Stereo 2.0
- Subtitles: English.
- (Archival) Commentary with Writer/Director Fred Dekker (1:29:52) Ported over from the Sony Pictures Director’s Cut DVD from 2009
- (Archival) Commentary with Actors Tom Atkins, Jason Lively, Steve Marshall and Jill Whitlow (1:29:52) Ported over from the Sony Pictures Director’s Cut DVD from 2009
- ALL NEW Real Good Plan: Interview with Jason Lively
- ALL NEW The Bradster: Interview with Actor Allan Kayser
- ALL NEW I Vote for That One: Interview with Actor Ken Heron
- ALL NEW Worst Coroner Ever: Interview with Actor Vic Polizos
- ALL NEW Answering the Door: Interview with Actress Suzanne Snyder
- ALL NEW Final Cut: Interview with Editor Michael N. Knue
- ALL NEW Horror’s Hallowed Grounds: A Look at the Film’s Locations Today
- ALL NEW Limited Edition Slipcover with original VHS cover art
- ALL NEW Reversible cover insert featuring the original theatrical one-sheet on one side, and the original VHS cover art on the other
This release also came with a few site exclusives, which were:
- 18”x24” Poster featuring newly commissioned artwork by Devon Whitehead
- Limited Edition Alternate Slipcover featuring newly commissioned artwork by Devon Whitehead
- Limited Edition NECA Figure of Detective Cameron, authorized and approved by Actor Tom Atkins.
So, with a 4K UHD Collector’s Edition released in 2025, why wouldn’t you trade up? What’s new to warrant a double dip? How about:
- ALL NEW 4K restoration from the original camera negative, approved by Writer/Director Fred Dekker
- ALL NEW Audio Commentary with Actor Suzanne Snyder and Filmmakers Jackson Stewart and Francis Galluppi
- ALL NEW A New Breed of Terror: The Films of Fred Dekker – A Career Retrospective
Oh, and did I mention a second NECA Figure of Detective Cameron was release, featuring Tom Atkins’ “Dream Sequence” white suit, complete with coconut drink?
A deal-breaker? This release DOES NOT feature the Theatrical Version you and I grew up watching, relegating it to a “Theatrical Ending” bonus feature like the 2009 Sony release. I’m not saying not to upgrade to the 4K for the cleaner print or a couple extra bonus whistles, but maybe not toss that 2019 Collector’s Edition into your re-sell stack if you want the COMPLETE Night of the Creeps experience.
I’m still a little irked that the Trivia Track never made it to these subsequent releases, for an all-encompassing “ultimate” release. That would have “thrilled me”.
Bits ‘N’ Pieces
Traum-A-Meter:
3 out of 4
Night of the Creeps is PLENTY goopy, featuring a number of sly gore effects, including split-open heads, ax murders, bloody headshots, stabbings, a lawnmower face rip, worm-infested zombie cats and dogs, and lots (and lots) of slimy slug consumption. Plenty of carnage, but the film leans heavily into comedy, so none of it is meant to be particularly disturbing. Just have fun.
Today’s Jam: “Throwing it All Away” by Genesis was the top of the rock charts this weekend, a catchy but sad song about giving up on a long relationship. I think the depressed Detective Cameron would have related to it. Ahhh…classic Spanky.