‘Night of the Creeps’ Still Thrills Me

June 10, 2020

Zombies, exploding heads, creepy-crawlies… and a date for the formal. This is classic, Spanky.

We love certain movies with an enduring, obsessive passion partly because they reflect some part of us or our experiences. We recognize ourselves in the characters or the narrative, and we feel seen. Fred Dekker’s legendary cult favorite, Night of the Creeps (1986) is a perfect example of this kind of movie for me: it feels like it was made specifically for me. And there are a large number of others fans out there who feel the same way about the film.

A warmhearted ode to creature features past, Dekker’s science fiction horror comedy left a huge impression on me the first time I saw it as a teenager and I’ve loved it ever since. Dekker had me at hello, of course, by skillfully combining science fiction, horror, and comedy. The story begins with a bang, with two lumpy, blobby, gun-toting aliens aboard a spaceship trying to stop another alien from releasing a canister out into the void. Spoiler: they don’t stop the third alien, and the canister is shot out of the spacecraft lands on the third rock from the sun during the year 1959. Chaos ensues on earth. The extraterrestrial parasites infect an escaped, criminally insane mental patient who immediately commits a horrific crime. Then the film jumps ahead to 1986, and soon enough the long-dormant parasites are unwittingly unleashed to create a legion of killer zombies out of the student body at the fictional Corman University.

Dekker’s nod to Roger Corman is just one of several hat tips to a long list of directors who clearly inspired the young filmmaker. Lead and supporting characters share last names with the likes of Romero, Carpenter, Cameron, Cronenberg, Hooper, Raimi, Landis, Craven, and Bava. Night of the Creeps wears its love for classic horror and sci-fi proudly on its sleeve, and Dekker’s ode to those who came before him is never cloying, just heartfelt and honest. While the film felt fresh then, and still does today, this loving link to the classics has always made it seem timeless, as well.

Another element that solidifies its status as cult film royalty would have to be the uniformly excellent performances from the cast. Dekker struck gold with the two male leads, Jason Lively as shy and nerdy Chris Romero, and Chris Marshall as wise-cracking and nerdy James Carpenter (J.C.) Hooper. From the minute we’re introduced to Chris and J.C. bantering on campus, we believe they’re best friends, and over the course of the film Lively and Marshall craft a truly complex, thoughtful portrait of male friendship which hinges on the two characters’ genuinely caring about one another. J.C.’s teasing of Chris for mooning over the impossibly sweet and beautiful Cynthia Cronenberg (played by the impossibly sweet and beautiful Jill Whitlow) is never mean-spirited, but instead just another example of how well the two know each other.

Cynthia’s first appearance very much marks her as the idealized female figure, the one that will inspire our male leads to greater heights of heroism than they ever imagined possible. Dekker quickly subverts this, though, first by revealing that Cynthia’s popular girl allure isn’t a put-on – she really is as sweet as Chris thinks she is. Later, when the parasite-infected students start lurching around campus, Cynthia hops into action alongside Chris and J.C., wielding a flamethrower against the killer zombies like an absolute boss, and forever stealing the hearts of every single nerd who ever watched this movie. I’ve been known to put together lists of why I love this movie so much, and two of the top reasons are always “Jill Whitlow being dreamy” and “Jill Whitlow being dreamy while setting killer zombies on fire with a flamethrower.” Whitlow is wonderful here, giving the kind of performance that should have made her a massive star.

Last but not least among the main cast is a performance by genre legend Tom Atkins that was brilliant in 1986 and has only aged like fine wine ever since. Atkins’ list of great performances is long and storied, including Halloween III: Season of the Witch, The Fog, Maniac Cop, and so many more, but for my money Detective Ray Cameron is his finest work. Cameron is given some of the film’s best, and most memorable lines, and Atkins delivers them with gusto. “Thrill me” being his most famous line, but it’s equally laugh-out-loud-funny when he calls the geeky Chris “Spanky” or deadpans to a house full of sorority sisters, “The good news is your dates are here….The bad news is they’re dead.” Cameron was there as a rookie cop in 1959 when the parasites landed, and he’s been haunted by his inability to stop the ensuing tragedy ever since. When faced with the zombie infestation at Corman U., Cameron bravely leads his young charges – Chris, J.C., and Cynthia – into battle. Atkins is at turns hilarious and tragic as Cameron, turning in a truly nuanced performance.

Night of the Creeps flamed out of the mulitplex as quickly as Cynthia and Chris dispensed with those zombies, but its legend grew steadily over time as a generation of film fanatics rented it over and over again on VHS. Amazingly, this was Dekker’s first film! He notes in the interview included with Scream Factory’s excellent Blu-ray release that he threw everything into this project that he possibly could, because he feared it might be his only chance at directing. Thankfully, this wasn’t true, and while I wish he had directed more over the years, he did manage to helm another cult favorite in 1987, The Monster Squad. For some directors, Dekker’s kitchen-sink approach to Night of the Creeps might be a recipe for disaster, but he melds all of the various aspects, including the 1950s, the 1980s, comedy, romance, horror, aliens, and zombies into something truly special that has felt both timely and timeless for nearly thirty-five years now. Cult classics don’t come any better than this one, in my book, and I’ll take a flamethrower to any arguments made against it.