Die Nacht der Creeps

Der Regisseur Dekker (der auch für den großartigen Film Monster Busters verantwortlich ist) war offensichtlich ein großer Fan des Horror-Genres, denn er versuchte, alle seine Attribute in seinem Debüt unterzubringen. Deshalb finden wir hier Elemente wie außerirdische Parasiten, Zombies oder einen flüchtigen Wahnsinnigen mit einer Axt. Der Film ist voller Verweise auf andere Horrorfilme, vor allem auf ihre kultverdächtigen Regisseure. Alle Charaktere haben daher bekannte Namen wie Hooper, Gordon, Carpenter, Raimi usw. Besonders ausgezeichnet ist der Charakter des Detektivs Cameron, dargestellt von Tom Atkins, der sein Bestes gibt. Diese gelungene Horror-Komödie ist für mich einfach eine Herzensangelegenheit unter den anderen B-Klasse Filmen der 80er. (09.02.2010)

Atkins' witziger Detektiv Cameron ist der Höhepunkt des ganzen Films! Humor gibt es hier reichlich, besonders zum Schluss, wenn wir ein bombastisches Finale erleben. Die große Unterhaltung dieses Horrorfilms übertrifft sogar seine offensichtlichen Nachteile - hölzerne Schauspieler und eine B-Movie-Qualität, die in den Himmel schreit. Trotzdem kann auch ein Fan von B-Filmen in den schlechteren Aspekten dieses Werkes sein eigenes Vergnügen finden. (29.05.2018)

This film is the exact reason why I don’t agree with those that constantly repeat the “axiom” that modern horror is worthless and that things were better in the 80s… Bullshit on top of bullshit; time and the memories of the old days are very powerful. If someone made something like this today (in every aspect with regards to quality), everybody would ignore it. (27.06.2012)

Thanks to the proliferation of genre-oriented festivals in the new millennium, a trend has arisen involving films whose main strength consists in imaginatively combining various formulas and genre templates. Though these films and their makers often appear to be innovative and progressive, they are essentially just repeating history. The creators of genre B-movies came up with the same principle in the 1980s, when they threw red meat to the insatiable video market (which at the time was the equivalent of today's genre festivals). Only films that offered the most distinctive and complex plots (as well as attractive packaging) could find success in the deluge of titles in video rental shops. Night of the Creeps is an exemplary product of that time, in spite of (or perhaps because of) the fact that it was made by the trash-oriented company Delphi V Productions, which was contractually bound to TriStar Pictures (now Columbia). The film is an absurd mix of a nerdy college flick and a 1950s horror B-movie. The awkwardness of a love story set on college campuses and revolving around nerds, jocks, fraternities and a dance is mixed with rubber aliens and invasive worms, as well as elements that were fashionable in 1980s horror movies: serial killers and the living dead. Just like contemporary hyper-sophisticated genre flicks, Night of the Creeps openly references the films that inspired it, particularly Plan 9 from Outer Space and Night of the Living Dead. Only it’s less dramaturgically polished and more sincerely trashy. (22.09.2013)

In this mishmash of 50s monster horror and 80s teen comedies, Fred Dekker makes it very clear from start to finish how big a fan of B-grade sci-fi horror he is. But rather than playing more with genre conventions, he just piles one film reference on top of another, and sometimes it's too much (every other character here is named after a horror director, etc.). For fans of horror films of the time, though, it's a nice throwback. (19.07.2018)