In 1959, some naked-ass alien bastards chuck an experiment from their spacecraft which crashes on Earth…where some young lovers, Pam and Johnny believe it is a falling star. As her date investigates, Pam is murdered by an ax-wielding maniac on the loose (that her ex-beau police officer Ray Cameron warned the duo about earlier in the evening). Meanwhile Johnny is infected by an alien slug that hops down his throat…so the night is pretty much a bust for both of them.
Flash forward to 1986, and college students Chris (Jason Lively) and J.C. (Steve Marshall) try and join a douchey fraternity to impress Cynthia Cronenberg (Jill Whitlow), the woman of Chris’ dreams. In order to complete that task, our heroes are tasked with stealing a corpse and placing it in front of a rival fraternity…which they fuck up in spectacular fashion when they free Johnny’s cryogenically frozen body…which isn’t as dead as everyone would hope.
Soon Johnny has released his payload of alien slugs that begin turning the campus into a legion of the walking dead…and not even the combined awkwardness of our heroes, and the extreme gruffness and take-no-bullshit attitude of (the now) Detective Ray Cameron (Tom Atkins) may be enough to save the day!
Look, there isn’t much my arcane ass can ad to the legacy of Night of the Creeps; if you’ve seen it, you doubtless love the shit out of it…I know I sure do! There’s nothing quite like this film’s blend of ’50’s era sci-fi creature feature aesthetics mixed with teen comedy shenanigans, perfect wise-ass dialog, catchphrases, and zombie action…not to mention the totally rad practical effects work.
So the movie is obviously aces, but what of the special features? Let me assure you; Scream Factory has our asses well and truly covered! First up we get a multi-part, making-of documentary that covers the film’s production from beginning to end and is an absolute delight to watch! Following that comes an interview with Atkins discussing his legendary career, a selection of deleted scenes, and the film’s theatrical trailer…and then comes disc two!
On this disc we get the Director’s Cut of the film (which runs about 2 minutes longer than the theatrical version on disc one, and features the superior “spaceship” ending), and features two audio commentaries; one with Writer/Director Fred Dekker, and the other with Actors Atkins, Lively, Marshall and Whitlow. The former is the more solid of the two as Dekker details the production in detail with little deviation into meandering small talk, while the latter is more scattershot, and often devolves into the participants watching the flick rather than offering interesting info…but it’s still a fun listen given the high-energy of the participants.
Also included are a multitude of interviews featuring Actors Lively, Allan Kayser, Ken Heron, Vic Polizos, Suazanne Snyder, and editor Michael N. Knue. Finally comes another top-shelf installment of Horror’s Hallowed Grounds featuring host Sean Clark taking us on a tour of the locations utilized in the production of the film.
So, Night of the Creeps is one hell of a fright flick, this edition is aces, and you should add this to your creepy collection toot-fuckin’-sweet!
