Night of the Creeps

Do you know the Hamburger Bed Girl? Sure you do. She's an internet sensation. I prefer to refer to her by her new monniker, though, the Millenium Falcon Bed Girl. That's infinitely cooler. Over the last few months, Kayla and I have been locking horns in our crudely executed videos, debating the merits of various horror flicks both classic and . . . less classic. Sure, posting this is a bit self-serving. Why? 'Cause that's me. I'm the one on the left in the video, the less cute one. Yes, I may be a bit intoxicated. Yes, I'm certainly obnoxious, but mock away, internet mongrels. That's what it's there for.

DISCLAIMER!

Before you show up at my door with your torches and your pitchforks, ready to skewer and burn me for my heresy, let me be clear. I love Night of the Creeps. I love it. Fred Dekker's flick is one of the best horror films of the 80's. But, had Kayla and I sat around mutually singing it's praises for 5 minutes, it wouldn't have been much of a debate. Besides, what's more entertaining than horror nerds arguing, right? Right??

After the jump is the video. Check it out.

I was extremely jealous of all my Austinite colleagues last weekend when I saw the Tweets fly about the Monster Squad screenings at the Alamo Drafthouse. Stars Andrew Gower, Ryan Lambert and Jon Gries along with writer Shane Black and director Fred Dekker were all in attendance. To celebrate the occasion there was a limited edition poster previewed by artist Tyler Stout. I've been drooling over it since first sight.

You can purchase the poster on the Mondo Tees website and you better hurry because one of the editions is already sold out. Each poster is screen printed with bad ass metallic inks and hand numbered. This is a very limited edition of only 450. Stout's psychedelic-nouveau style immediately makes me recall another favorite poster of mine for the 1976 film Squirm. Visit Stout's website and enter a movie geek's wet dream.

Dekker himself claimed that Stout's poster was the best poster ever created for his film about a club of kids who set out to save the world from a horde of classic movie monsters. The director celebrated a highly anticipated DVD and Blu-ray release of Night of the Creeps this past October. I've been fantasizing that Stout might work his genius for a Creeps poster. A nifty glow in the dark event poster was created by John Smith for the Alamo Ritz Creeps reunion last summer.

Geez Austin, quit being so geeky and lovely already.

Once again we find ourselves in the throes of our favorite holiday: Halloween. What I love about being a horror geek at this time of the year is that all the non-horror people get to pretend they are just like us. Video stores are beset by droves of customers clamoring for the horror section all of whom would otherwise avoid it like grim death. I don't mean to sound elitist, the amount of horror films I watch on a weekly basis is probably wildly unhealthy, but here is my list of the top five must-watch titles for All Hallows Eve.

I think Orphan kind of got the brush off when it came out in theaters, but against all my better instincts I found myself enjoying it quite a bit; not unlike director Jaume Collet-Serra's equally as dismissed, but surprisingly impressive House of Wax remake. Is it flawless? Of course not, but it's an efficiently paced thriller that goes to darker territory than most 'killer children' movies do. It's beautifully shot and wonderfully acted by both Vera Farmiga and Isabelle Fuhrman, who knocks it out of the park as the title character. Worth a rental in my book, and my book is a book of laws.

I haven't actually seen either Fear(s) of the Dark or Sauna, but I have heard nothing but happy thoughts about both of them. The former is an animation feast exploring several artist's, well, fears of the dark, while the latter is a Finnish film about sins that haunt the sinner.

Tom Atkins said "thrill me" and they did. Sony Home Entertainment is finally releasing Fred Dekker's 80's cult classic, Night of the Creeps, on DVD and Blu-ray. Yes, you read that right and you can pick it up tomorrow, October 27! At last, you can relive the alien slug/zombie invasion in all its Blu-ray glory. Life is good.

Michael Felsher from Red Shirt Pictures handled the DVD special features which includes:

- Commentary with writer/director Fred Dekker
- Cast commentary featuring Tom Atkins, Jill Whitlow, Steve Marshall and Jason Lively
- Birth of the Creeps featurette
- Cast of the Creeps featurette
- Creating the Creeps featurette
- Escape of the Creeps featurette
- Legend of the Creeps featurette
- Tom Atkins: Man of Action featurette
- Original theatrical ending (no doggie!)
- Deleted scenes
- Trivia track

- Been waiting over 20 years for Fred Dekker's Night of the Creeps to get the retail release it deserves? Well now you're going to have to wait even longer, both the DVD and Blu-ray have slipped to October 27th. Sure it's not a huge delay, but that's a whole seven days you'll be without a glimpse of yours truly in the special features.

- Dread Central rounded up several updates from Anne Rice's Facebook page (yes, I just typed that) regarding the notion of Robert Downey Jr. as the forever 20 year old star of her Vampire Chronicles. Spoiler alert: I think she has a crush on Iron Man.

- Good news: Kathryn Bigelow's widely popular Near Dark will be getting the Blu-ray treatment from Lionsgate this November 10th. Bad news: Lionsgate is likely only putting this disc out to capitalize on the popularity of a certain sparkley teen-centric vampire soap opera, which means it'll probably still have this awful cover.

Fred Dekker and horror fans are eagerly awaiting the long delayed, special-edition DVD release of Night of the Creeps, which hits store shelves on October 20. As if those hours of extras weren't enough to whet your interest (and I've included a list of them below the jump in case you missed them the first tine around), now the special edition took a new turn for the fans.

According to Bloody-Disgusting, Sony is sponsoring an original contest via Amazon.com that allows fans to choose the final DVD cover. But don't get carried away thinking that fans will submit a cover, or have a variety of options to choose from. There's only three choices, none of them featuring the original poster or VHS cover art, and all of them rather ugly. (That's one girl's opinion, however, yours might vary considerably.) The one to the right is currently in the lead with 56% of the votes, probably because it has the most grindhouse flavor. But regardless of the choices, you should support DVD democracy and go vote for the one you like best.

I do hope this choose-your-own-cover contest is the first sign of a trend, and we'll have more contests. Perhaps it'll expand so that we could order any DVD with any cover art we choose. Obviously, there'd have to be a cost-effective limit of art choices available, but who wouldn't prefer to choose a beloved film's classic poster over the fugly Photoshops that often get slapped on DVD covers?


[via Twitchfilm]

Yeah, yeah, I write reviews for FEARnet, but if you think that's why I'd promote their "free movies," well, you're insane. ANYONE who wants to give out free horror flicks is due for a blog-plug from yours truly, and I'll soon be scouring the YouTubes, the Hulus, and the Crackles to see what else I can track down for all us money-strapped splat addicts.

So where was I? Oh yes, free movies on FEARnet this week include the dangerous dental double feature of The Dentist and The Dentist 2, both of which answer the question of where Corbin Bernsen went. After you rinse those out, check out Milla's zombie zapping skillz in Resident Evil AND Resident Evil: Apocalypse, or take a trip to the adorable Dance of the Dead, OR dive into the cult classic wonderfulness that is Night of the Creeps. Other options: Freaky Frontier(s), icky Infection, and crappy Christmas Evil. Note: These are the "free online" titles. The FEARnet options on your cable box may vary wildly and very bloodily.

If you're of a certain age bracket (and an amazingly geeky movie freak), then you probably remember the volcanic geyser of nerdly enthusiasm when Fred Dekker's The Monster Squad finally made its DVD debut. Very fun flick, perfect for younger horror fans, a great special edition package, and lots of happy DVD collectors. Nice story, eh?

Except that if you're a full-bore HORROR FAN, you'll bypass the family-friendly Goonies-style shenanigans of The Monster Squad, opting instead for Mr. Dekker's earlier mini-masterpiece: The adorably comic bookish and entirely movie-geeky Night of the Creeps, which is one of those movies in which A) sci-fi meets horror flick meets monster movie meets romantic comedy, B) all of the characters share their names with famous genre directors, and C) everyone (including the viewer) is in on the joke. The joke being, "Yeah, a lot of genre flicks are pretty darn broad, pulpy, and silly ... but boy do we love 'em anyway."

This smoothly amusing genre concoction hit the scene back in '86, and it didn't take long for a small-but-LOUD fan-base to grow. I should know; I've been a member since the day Creeps first hit VHS. Best of all, this tale of slimy beasties invading a college campus while parties break out and zombies lurch by ... will hit DVD with a whole bunch of fan-friendly treats: Director's cut, alternate ending, numerous goodies too juicy to worry about right this second -- because the platters won't be ready until October. But still, this is a red-letter day for the old-school horror fans. Night of the Creeps has been one of our Holy Grail titles since the invention of the acronym "DVD," so as Tom Atkins would say: Thrill me.

[ As the bearer of wonderful news, we gladly drape Shock with seven layers of Rick Baker-style gore chunks. An extra portion of splat goes to InternalBleeding.net, because that's where I stole the screen shot from. ]