After a bizarre space battle, an alien container lands in 1950’s America and unleashes a race of slug creatures. One slug attacks a young couple on lover’s lane and soon gets caught by a young police officer. Flash forward to the 1980’s, the officer (Tom Atkins) lives in the back and fear of the return of these creatures. This of course comes true when College student Chris (Jason Lively) breaks into a lab to steal a body as part of fraternity prank. The body falls and the slugs are let loose to control the bodies of any of their victims.

NIGHT OF THE CREEPS (1986) is wild horror comedy from the 80’s. A time when gore and big effects were mixed with 1950’s styled horror and sci-fi plots. CREEPS take this further as a full-blown love letter to the genre with many in jokes and wild one liners. The first section of the movie is even filmed in black and white with stock music. The characters have horror movie director names like Cronenberg, Landis, Carpenter, Hooper, and Romero. The clichés fly just as much as the gore. It balances the horror and comedy well without fully falling into parody.

The main reason to see this movie is for Tom Atkins having the time of his life as Detective Cameron. Shooting slug zombies and saying Thrill me as his catch phrase. Dekker would later work on the comedy sci-fi and horror projects of MONSTER SQUAD and ROBOCOP 3, but NIGHT OF THE CREEPS is his master work. A disappointment during its original release, it now stands as one of the most enjoyable of the outrageous 80’s horror boom. It never falls into the trap of being too broad or silly.

Eureka! Releases the film with two audio tracks. The 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track is the way to go if you have the sound system in your home theater setup. The sound effects and music are all polished and clean. There is no hiss or pops. The 2.0 LPCM Stereo mix is a little softer but still clear. English subtitles are included.

Scream Factory with a quite solid DTS-HD MA 5.1 track in English. The track sounds quite solid, and comes through very clearly with excellent sound separation.

The 1080p HD transfer is over bright in a few of the daylight scenes. There seems to be some milky texture on some of the actor’s make up. The nighttime scenes are clean and moody. There is some natural film grain but no real print damage. The makeup effects do a little too good for my liking. The transfer is at its best when its spotlighting the more dramatic lit scenes.

Scream presents Night of the Creeps in 2 cuts a theatrical and director’s cut. Both are presented in 1080p 1:85:1 transfer that look truly excellent. Grain is quite natural, detail is excellent, black levels are inky and deep, and colors are well-reproduced.

There is an audio commentary with director Fred Dekker, which is full of geeky references to all the film’s horror homages. Dekker sounds like a fun movie fan that you would love to spend more time with. The next commentary is a cast roundtable with Tom Atkins, Jason Lively, Steve Marshall, and Jill Whitlow. This track is looser and more conversational with everyone having a great time.

“Thrill Me: Making Night of the Creeps” is an hour-long documentary into all aspects of the film’s production with plenty of fun interviews and effects work. There are plenty of stories about Dekker’s friendship with writer/director bad boy Shane Black (KISS KISS BANG BANG, THE NICE GUYS) which leads to an interview with Director Fred Dekker. He talks openly about his work on scripts for the unmade Steve Miner Godzilla film as well as the cult classic HOUSE. “Tom Atkins: Man of Action” is a 19 minute interview with the famed cult action. He is endlessly likable and humble about his work in John Carpenter films, HALLOWEEN 3: SEASON OF THE WITCH, and going to conventions. One of the best features on the disc. Rounding out the disc is a trailer gallery, a trivia subtitle track, the original theatrical ending, and a handsome booklet of production stills and an essay by Craig Ian Mann.

Scream’s edition of  Night of the Creeps comes with a commentary by Fred Dekker, and another with the cast of the film. There are deleted scenes, making of featurettes, trailers, a still gallery, and new interviews with the cast of the film. We also get a new episode of Horror’s Hallowed Ground showing off the locations for the film as they are now.

NIGHT OF THE CREEPS is a fun thrill ride from the 1980’s horror boom. Eureka! Has done a fantastic job bringing this cult favorite back to life on Blu-ray. Both recent editions are Highly Recommended.