Night Of The Creeps (Collector’s Edition) [Blu-Ray]

Director: Fred Dekker

Cast: Jason Lively, Steve Marshall, Tom Atkins

Release Date: June 25, 2019

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Disc Rating: 9.5/10

Synopsis:

When an alien experiment goes awry, it crashes to Earth in 1959 and infects a young college student. Twenty-seven years later, his cryogenically frozen body is thawed out by fraternity pledges … and the campus is quickly overrun by alien creatures whose victims turn into zombies!

The wildly fun and delightfully silly 80’s classic ‘Night of the Creeps’ follows a night of college shenanigans and good times which quickly take a terrifying turn when a parasite ingested through the mouth begins turning people into bloodthirsty zombies at an unnerving rate, causing some unlikely kids and a cop with an attitude to stand their ground and fight back with everything they have. Written and directed by Fred Dekker (The Monster Squad, Robocop 3) and starring Jason Lively, Steve Marshall, Jill Whitlow and Tom Atkins, ‘Night of the Creeps’ was originally unleashed upon audiences in the summer of 1986 and still holds up as a truly fun, funny and clever horror comedy that’s up there with some of the greats, if anything perhaps only more appreciated these days after gaining quite the well-deserved cult classic reputation.

Fred Dekker’s unique horror comedy ‘Night of the Creeps’ is a great deal of fun, merging up various genres to one degree or another and forming them together into a horror comedy with an alien background, a clever black and white scene that transitions into color once arriving at modern time and then diving into the typical world of college partying and judgment which quickly finds the horror elements creeping up and eventually turning into a fast paced and bloody zombie action fest filled with goofy quips and gory fun. For genre fans who tend to enjoy a solid 80’s horror flick of this sort yet haven’t previously had the pleasure, it’s definitely one that you’ll want to make a point of checking out. Now, ‘Night of the Creeps’ comes home again in this new 2-disc Collector’s Edition Blu-ray from the Shout Factory horror label Scream Factory which offers both the Theatrical Cut and the Director’s Cut of the horror comedy classic, not to mention an impressive collection of worthwhile extras featuring hours of bonus goodies including numerous brand new extras created specifically for this release (please see the special features section in the technical specification coverage of the review below for more detailed information) and any fans of the film (especially those who don’t already own a copy of a prior Blu-ray release, and even some who do) will probably want to at least consider picking up a copy of this impressive new Collector’s Edition Blu-ray to add to your collection.

Overall, Scream Factory’s new 2-disc Blu-ray collector’s edition of ‘Night of the Creeps’ brings home the cult classic horror comedy written and directed by Fred Dekker once again with a snazzy new release that shouldn’t disappoint. Including both the Theatrical and Director’s Cuts of the film with wonderful high definition video and audio presentations (each version of the film is also granted its own disc for optimum quality), along with tons of enjoyable and informative bonus content featuring a number of new extras made specifically for this new Collector’s Edition release. Scream Factory’s new Blu-ray release of ‘Night of the Creeps’ is definitely highly recommended! Fans will likely find themselves quite pleased with his jam-packed and thoroughly satisfying new 2-disc Blu-ray set which if nothing else should easily serve as the definite BD release of the popular 80’s classic for the time being.

VIDEO:

The Scream Factory Collector’s Edition Blu-ray release of ‘Night of the Creeps’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation of both the Theatrical Cut and the Director’s Cut, with both utilizing the film’s original 1.85:1 Aspect Ratio. The video presentations both look pretty fantastic as a whole and provide clean, smooth and detailed presentations from start to finish that still retain plenty of grain and other welcome elements representative of its source material. They hold up impressively even during the numerous darkly lit sequences and heavily populated moments, never allowing anything onscreen to become negatively affected or rendered indiscernible. Overall, these are quite wonderful high definition video presentations of the cult classic that may not be brand new transfers, but should definitely still please the fans.

AUDIO:

The Collector’s Edition Blu-ray release features both a 5.1 and 2.0 channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack for both versions of the film. I personally opted for viewing with the 5.1 soundtrack utilized which sounds pretty solid altogether and serves up a crisp, clean and at times quite active audio presentation on both cuts. While perhaps not the booming and constant whirlwind of activity we’ve become accustomed to these days, this audio presentation still embraces all five available channels in order to immerse us in the music while sending some action effects, crowd chatter and more throughout the various speakers when appropriate, and never conflicting with any dialogue or other audio elements that may be occurring simultaneously. Overall, these are quite capable 5.1 channel DTS-HD MA soundtracks that sound consistently great and do a nice job of complimenting the onscreen fun throughout.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Scream Factory Collector’s Edition Blu-ray release of ‘Night of the Creeps’ includes a noteworthy collection of bonus content spread between the two discs of the release. I’ve broken down the extras by disc below for simplicity and easy navigation.

Disc One (aka the ‘Theatrical Cut’ disc) includes the 5-part, in-depth retrospective documentary ‘Thrill Me! The Making of Night of the Creeps’ (running approximately 51 minutes in length) which explores bringing the film to life, in addition to ‘Tom Atkins: Man of Action’ (running approximately 20 minutes), plus some ‘Deleted Scenes’ from the movie (approximately 8 minutes altogether) and the film’s ‘Theatrical Trailer’ (90 seconds).

Disc Two (aka the ‘Director’s Cut’ disc) includes plenty of additional fun extras, beginning with ‘2 Audio Commentary’ tracks, the first of which is an ‘Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Fred Dekker’ and the second an ‘Audio Commentary with Actors Tom Atkins, Jason Lively, Steve Marshall and Jill Whitlow’. Also included on the disc is a collection of noteworthy interviews with members of the cast and crew including ‘Real Good Plan with Jason Lively’ (running approximately 11 minutes), ‘The Bradster with Allan Kayser’ (approximately 8 minutes), ‘I Vote For That One with Ken Heron’ (10 minutes), ‘Worst Coroner Ever with Vic Polizos’ (6 minutes), ‘Answering the Door with Suzanne Snyder’ (4 minutes) and ‘Final Cut with Editor Michael N. Knue (11 minutes). A look at the movie’s filming locations today is also included in a new edition of ‘Horror’s Hallowed Grounds’ (approximately 11 minutes).

*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Rays and resized. They will additionally suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this Blu-Ray release are the property of their respective owners.

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Disc Rating: 9.5/10

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‘Night Of The Creeps’ is Now Available to Own on Collector’s Edition 2-Disc Blu-ray from Scream Factory!

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You can purchase your copy of ‘Night Of The Creeps’ Collector’s Edition’ by clicking on the Amazon cart icon below, or purchase it directly from Shout Factory by Clicking Here!