Night of the Creeps (1986)
Written and directed by Fred Dekker
Starring Jason Lively, Steve Marshall, Jill Whitlow, Tom Atkins, and Dick Miller
I have a suspicion that the title didn’t help.
Fame can be elusive, and one talent it got away from is Fred Dekker. In a career spanning four decades, he hasn’t written or directed very much. Among his limited output, however, he’s created a good number of cult classics. He wrote the story for House (the American horror-comedy), co-wrote and directed The Monster Squad, and wrote four episodes of Tales From the Crypt (directing two of them). Not everything was great, of course. There was Robocop 3 and his involvement in the regrettable series Star Trek: Enterprise, but what kind of fan would turn down work in either of those franchises? And make no mistake, Dekker is a big fan of monsters and science fiction. It’s not an abusive love, like you get from J.J. Abrams, either. It’s a genuine affection for what came before, which Dekker uses as the foundation for his work. Never is this more visible than in his writing and directing debut, Night of the Creeps. Even the name is a callback to the progenitor of modern zombie movies, Night of the Living Dead. Heck, there’s a Dick Miller cameo, so you know it’s an authentic genre film!
The Monster Squad (1987)
Directed by Fred Dekker
Written by Shane Black and Fred Dekker
Starring Andre Gower, Robby Kiger, Stephen Macht, Duncan Regehr, and Tom Noonan
The monsters are in a squad but the Monster Squad has no monsters.
In the 1940s, Universal was desperate to keep raking in that sweet monster movie cash but only had a few new monsters in their roster. Sequels weren’t quite doing it, so someone hit on the idea of having a few of them meet. After Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man met with success, Dracula was tossed into the mix (almost literally) for House of Frankenstein and then House of Dracula. The Mummy was supposed to be worked in somewhere, but that plan never came to fruition. Fortunately, The Monster Squad corrects this oversight.
