NIGHT OF THE CREEPS

NIGHT OF THE CREEPS

"Thrill me ...".

We start on board a spacecraft, inhabited by a crew of short alien beings. They're racing around their vessel, clearly in a state of panic. We see them evict a small shuttle from their ship, which clearly contains the object of their consternation. As the scene ends, we catch a glimpse of one of the aliens' zombified eyes.

Then we shift to an American sorority house in 1959. Johnny (Ken Heron) tosses pebbles at a fraternity house's bedroom window. He gets the attention of his intended date, Pam (Alice Cadogan), and they hop into his car. Driving to a nearby beauty spot, the couple snuggle together as the gaze merrily at the stars above. They barely seem to hear the newscaster on the car radio as he warns of an escaped lunatic in the area. Just to reinforce the point, young cop Ray (Dave Alan Johnson) turns up to warn all young lovers in the area to go home. However, it's soon clear that he and Pam previously had a thing going on too, and Ray swiftly retreats.

Unluckily for Pam and Johnny, they don't get far before witnessing a falling meteorite (a certain small shuttle!) which he goes to investigate while she stays in the car. There's bad news in store for both of these kids: Pam is axed to death by the aforementioned escaped maniac; Johnny locates the fallen shuttle, only for its alien contents to leap, slug-like, down his throat.

Cut to 1986, the film's present day.

Nerdish student Chris (Jason Lively) and his disabled best pal JC (Steve Marshall) are freshers looking to get laid at their college's pledge week party. Chris is instantly smitten upon clocking eyes on beautiful brunette Cindy (Jill Whitlow). Alas, she's going steady with spunk-headed jock Brad (Allan Kayser).

When Brad learns that Chris has designs on his girlfriend, it seems like our protagonists are in deep trouble - until Brad offers them a way out: steal a cadaver from the college medical centre, and dump it on the steps of the girl's sorority house. If they do that, he falsely promises, they will earn initiation into his frat group.

So, Chris and JC psyche themselves up to commit a spot of corpse-stealing. Only, what they discover in the college morgue is something entirely different: Johnny, cryogenically preserved in an airtight tube. Of course, the boys tamper with a buttons and inadvertently release Johnny's corpse - which, initially, seems like an easy solution to their task at hand. Until, that is, Johnny springs into life ... and the boys scarper away "screaming like banshees" (if you've seen the film, you'll know ...).

Enter a middle-aged Ray (now played by Tom Atkins). He's a detective for the local police force these days, and is still fucked up over not saving his sweetheart Pam's life all those years ago. Despite having subsequently tracked down her killer and shooting him dead, the case remains unresolved in Ray's mind.

Ray is assigned to the case of a cadaver which gets stolen from the University morgue, and is found headless on the steps of the girls' sorority house. A witness saw Chris and JC fleeing the place on the same evening, and so Ray naturally pins the crime on them. When they attempt to tell him what happened on that evening, he has trouble swallowing their story.

But when the morgue assistant (David Paymer) who was working on that fateful evening is found dead, only to spring back into life and unleash a slug-like parasite out of his mouth, this small town will soon be in the grip of slimy little aliens that invade their hosts orally and turn them into crazed zombies.

It's time for Ray, Chris and Cindy to work together if they have any hope of curbing the ensuing bloodshed ...

NIGHT OF THE CREEPS is an enduring mish-mash of genres. It toys with frat comedy, 50s sci-fi tropes, alien invasions, buddy cop films, teen nostalgia, zombies and more. The fact that it does them all pretty much seamlessly is testament to first-time feature director Fred Dekker's focus.

Working from his own impressively intelligent, witty script, Dekker exhibits stunning control over pacing, performances and style here. Yes, there's a lot of humour, but everything is played straight-faced at all times and there's never a risk of events descending into farce. There's a real heart at the film's centre too, affectionate relationships having been established by the final act between just about all the major players.

As for the action? Dekker pitches it just right. There's a lot going on, but this never feels messy: from the gorgeous monochrome 50s prologue to the use of cult directors' surnames for characters in the script (Raimi, Carpenter, Cronenberg etc), in lesser hands these conceits would come across as total fanboy excess. But no, it all fits here, into this taut and extremely enjoyable, sincere flick which is as good-natured as it is surprisingly tense and gory at times (the FX work is better than I remembered - kudos to the KNB-EFX team).

This film is even cool enough to include cameos from cult favourites Robert Kerman and Dick Miller.

Eureka! Entertainment bring NIGHT OF THE CREEPS to the UK in a stunning blu-ray and DVD dual format edition. We were sent a copy of the former to review.

At 89 minutes and 52 seconds in length, this is the full uncut director's version of the film. It's presented as an MPEG4-AVC file with full 1080p HD resolution, in a 16x9 transfer which preserves the original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Colours are strong but natural, as are flesh tones and blacks. A healthy bit rate ensures an absence of unsightly crushing or motion-blurring. Healthy natural grain persists lightly on this pristine, sharp and vibrant print which serves a low-budget film over thirty years of age extremely well.

English audio is provided in options of 2.0 and 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio mixes. Both are excellent, well-rounded and consistent prospects, with the former being the more natural-sounding of the two. Optional English subtitles are typo-free and readable at all times.

The disc opens to a static main menu page. There's no scene selection menu but the film itself is graced with 9 chapters.

A veritable plethora of bonus features begins with an audio commentary track from Dekker, moderated with intelligence by Michael Felsher. Dekker warns from the offset that he tends to talk quick, and has a lot of information to offer. He doesn't race along too much, but he wasn't kidding about the attention to detail. Locations, his cast, the films that influenced his script, the FX work, production design, audience reactions: Dekker's commentary is modest ("believe me, this movie's tricky for me to watch ... I just made it up as I went along"), comprehensive and engaging.

We also get a second commentary track. This one is provided by Lively, Atkins, Marshall and Whitlow. It's a jovial, occasionally raucous affair which nevertheless comes across as more anecdotal than its companion piece.

"Thrill Me" is a superb hour-long Making Of, which includes contributions from all the main players in front of and behind the cameras, as well as plenty of entertaining behind-the-scenes footage. Everyone concerned has fond memories of the shoot, and this slickly edited proposition positively flies by.

"Man of Action" is a 20-minute interview with the great Tom Atkins. He tells of how his career started when he landed a stage role in the mid-60s, which led to him bagging a part in a Frank Sinatra vehicle. From there, he speaks with great affection about working with the likes of Tony Richardson, Jamie Lee Curtis, John Carpenter, Richard Donner and especially George A Romero ("the best"). Atkins seemed like a genuinely nice fellow who never forgot where he came from, and remained extremely grateful for the happy life his career had given him. He's even gracious enough to admit that Shane Black's notion of him playing Riggs in the original LETHAL WEAPON was never going to happen.

A 31-minute interview with Dekker follows and, as with his commentary track, is such an easy listen. Dekker is fluent, engaging and refreshingly honest. He looks kind of cool in his open leather jacket too ... The bulk of this featurette focuses on how CREEPS came about, and its making - Atkins was "a gift from above"; the studio ummed and aahed over the film's budget; how he hates campiness in movies, and so on.

10 minutes of deleted scenes are up next. These are window-boxed and have a VHS quality to them. You can see why these were edited out, in terms of pacing.

The original theatrical ending is presented in all its 31-second glory and, personally, I like it better than the one used in the disc's director's cut.

Fans of original trailers, fear not - the mid-80s 92-second preview is also present and correct (and in startlingly good shape).

Last but not least, if you go to the disc's audio menu, you'll find the option for "Trivia track subtitles". When selected, this provided titbits of trivia while the film plays. Dekker had previously written the screenplay for HOUSE; how Lively became famous for his role in NATIONAL LAMPOON'S EUROPEAN VACATION; backgrounds on actors; distinguishing the differences between the theatrical and TV versions of the film; why Christian metal group Stryper happen to be name-checked on the toilet walls in one scene; pointing out each homage as it occurs, etc. This type of track has tended to be a little sporadic when distributors such as Shameless have employed them in the past, but this one ticks over just nicely.

Although not provided for review purposes, this release also comes with a limited-edition O-card slipcase and a collectors' booklet containing a new essay by critic Craig Ian Mann.

A stunning release for a film that stands the test of time wonderfully.

Review by Stuart Willis


 
Released by Eureka! Entertainment
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