Night of the Creeps deserves to be discussed in the pantheon of great horror comedies right alongside other classics of the era like An American Werewolf in London and The Howling before it and Evil Dead 2 (1987) after.
It is a love letter to horror, science fiction, fantasy, film noir, and much more that came before it, but still has the edge of modernity even forty years after it appeared and, sadly, quickly disappeared from theaters in August of 1986. Those who have discovered it over the years understand why it is so great. It has it all—aliens, brain parasites, zombies, an axe murderer, a hard-boiled detective, a flamethrower, Dick Miller, and Tom Atkins at peak mustache. And that’s just for starters.
The writer/director of Night of the Creeps, Fred Dekker, has analogized the creation of the film to the making of a stew. The stock, if you will, of that stew had been simmering for some time as the horror, science fiction, and fantasy films of his childhood—and perhaps teen movies and hard-boiled detective fiction as well—swirled around in his head. While at UCLA, the image of a grizzled detective answering a phone and urging the person on the other end to “thrill me” came to him. He combined this idea with a film story he had been working on about a young heart-sick guy and his sidekick and made some antics they were up to the impetus for the crime the detective was investigating. He realized there should be a pretty girl in this mix as well. With this meat and potatoes base established, it was time to add some flavors.
Dekker began adding more ingredients from his years of movie watching—zombies, aliens, brain parasites, more pretty girls, antagonistic frat guys; “taking all of the B-movie crap,” Dekker later explained, “and just throwing it all into the blender and hitting the purée button.” This kind of approach can sometimes spell certain doom for first-time filmmakers, fearful that they will never have the opportunity to make another film. In the case of Night of the Creeps, however, its packed-to-the-brim nature is a feature, not a bug.
It’s also a very assured, even gutsy, movie. Most of the prologue is not only set in the late fifties but is shot in black and white. The sequence, which homages classics like The Blob (1958) of a mysterious object falling from space, ends on a cliffhanger before cutting ahead to 1986 and pledge week at Corman University and the introduction of our protagonist, Chris Romero (Jason Lively), and his buddy James Carpenter “J.C.” Hooper (Steve Marshall). But Dekker trusts the audience to follow the shifts between past and present and deftly fits all the pieces together by the end while still maintaining just the right amount of mystery along the way.
Nobody Delivers a One-Liner Like Detective Ray Cameron
After the prologue, Chris and J.C. attempt to pledge a fraternity they are not suited for to gain the approval of Cynthia “Cindy” Cronenberg (Jill Whitlow). They run afoul of Cindy’s boyfriend, Brad (Allan Kayser), who sends them on a doomed mission to obtain a cadaver and deliver it to a rival fraternity, with the promise of allowing them to pledge the frat. This is all in the vein of a classic college romp like Animal House (1978), but the twist soon comes when our heroes accidentally turn loose a corpse that has been cryogenically frozen in a lab at the University since…you guessed it…1959, which brings our detective into the picture.
Detective Raymond Cameron (likely an elision of the names Raymond Chandler and James Cameron), played by horror legend Tom Atkins, is given one of the best character introductions of the ’80s. Lounging on a beach in a white tuxedo and sunglasses while being served a drink in a coconut by a pretty girl in a bikini, Cameron is cool incarnate—then he wakes up. He answers his ringing phone with what will soon become the film’s refrain, “thrill me.” There is more to this phrase than first meets the ear.
Cameron is a man who has been driven to numbness by the death of the love of his life, who was killed years before by an escaped mental patient with an axe. He is well aware that there is practically nothing left in his god-forsaken world that will make him feel anything at all, much less the lofty notion of being “thrilled.”
But soon he follows the evidence of the break-in at the University lab to Chris and J.C., whom he calls “Spanky and Alfalfa,” one of his many references to a bygone era. I imagine he never would have thought that a couple of geeky freshmen would give his life a bit of a thrill after all. But then it’s probably more the corpse-reanimating brain parasites that did the trick.
A Love Letter Packed With Horror References
As I’m sure is clear from this beginning of a plot synopsis, which I will halt here for those who have not seen the movie, Night of the Creeps is practically overflowing with references to horror and science fiction filmmakers and their movies. In addition to the names already mentioned, characters include Detective Landis (Wally Taylor), Sgt. Raimi (Bruce Solomon), police officers Dante and DePalma, and Mr. Miner (Robert Kino). There is a black cat named Gordon, possibly a reference to Stuart Gordon, whose first feature, Re-Animator (1985), also featured a reanimated zombie black cat. The sorority House Mother (Evelyne Smith) is watching Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space on television, a film about space aliens who reanimate the dead, a nice meta touch before the concept was discussed all that much.
One of the best extended in-jokes of the film is the cameo by the great Dick Miller. First of all, he is called “Walter” by Cameron and is wearing a nameplate that reads “W. Paisley.” Walter Paisley is the name of Dick Miller’s character in Roger Corman’s horror comedy A Bucket of Blood (1959) and would be reprised time and again for several characters he played in the years to come. The scene is a play on a similar one in The Terminator (1984), in which Miller plays a pawnshop owner, which is in itself a modernization of scenes from The Public Enemy (1931) and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966) in which a criminal asks a shop owner to show them a gun only to rob the store with it. In this case, Chris and Cameron procure a flamethrower, which plays a major role in the film’s action-filled climax.
As Fred Dekker has rightly said, Night of the Creeps is “a pastiche but not a spoof,” and much of the humor comes from the overall tone of the picture and the audience’s grasp of its references. That said, there are funny lines and situations. In one scene, Cynthia, not realizing that Brad is a zombie, sits on the porch with him for a heart-to-heart talk as slug parasites spew from his mouth behind her. Soon after, Cameron delivers the film’s most famous exchange. Holding aside the curtain, he says, “I’ve got good news and bad news, girls. The good news is your dates are here.” One of the sorority girls asks, “What’s the bad news?” “They’re dead,” Cameron deadpans.
Practical Effects That Perfectly Capture B-Movie Magic
Those dead dates, and indeed all of the special makeup effects, were created by David B. Miller, fresh off Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), and his team, which included Howard Berger and Robert Kurtzman, who within a few years would become two-thirds of the famed KNB EFX Group. Miller and his team had very little time and even less money to create the effects that are not only effective but manage to capture the classic B-movie quality of the film’s antecedents. That the seams show from time to time is perfect for the atmosphere of Night of the Creeps.
In addition to the humor, the scares are effective, the gore is plentiful and well-executed, and the stakes feel genuine. There is a great deal of fun, but also sophistication and heart. Ray Cameron delivers some of the film’s wittiest dialogue, but he also has great psychological depth, lending his actions as the film progresses a sense of purpose and gravitas. It’s no wonder why Tom Atkins has often named Night of the Creeps his favorite of the films he has made and Detective Cameron his favorite of the characters he has played. The bond between Chris and JC is palpable, making the scene where Chris listens to a recording of JC’s final message to him truly heartbreaking. Cynthia is a complex young woman with brains and autonomy. Plus, she’s an absolute badass with that flamethrower.
Even though its cult has grown considerably over the years, I still feel like Night of the Creeps is underdiscussed. And from those rubber-suited aliens, the “Stryper Rules” and “Go Monster Squad” graffiti in the men’s room, and “It’s Miller Time,” to the hairspray and cigarette torch, the wall of stop-motion slugs, and which ending each viewer prefers, there is so much to discuss. So, as ever, I will continue to declare the greatness of Night of the Creeps as I have from the moment I first discovered it. And every time I watch it, which is often, it always has the ability to—say it with me—thrill me.
