"It's Miller Time."

Finally after years and years... and years of waiting, Fred Dekker's "Night Of The Creeps" has arrived on DVD (and Blu-Ray)!!! Long only available on out-of-print Laserdiscs and VHS tapes (and a favorite on the "Con" bootleg circuit), it is one of the quintessential horror flicks of the 80's!!! And one of the most anticipated releases of all time.

Due to poor marketing by the studio, it didn't do too well on it's initial theatrical release, but because of cable and home video, it's slowly gained the attention that it deserved and has become the very essence of "cult classic" (Not that I'm in a cult. Or am I...?). It blends and bends b-movie conventions i.e. space alien experiments, parasitic slugs, escape ax murderers, hardboiled cops, half-naked sorority girls, fratboy hijinx & last but not least... zombies!!!! And that's all in the same fucking movie people!

Writer/Director Fred Dekker was a man way ahead of his time. "Night Of The Creeps" along with Dekker's other masterpiece, the kiddie/horror flick, "The Monster Squad"(Another long unavailable title that was just released on dvd to much fanfare- no, not just me- a couple of years ago. Suck it, "Van Helsing"!) came along way before other self-referential horror "classics" like "Scream" (All the major characters share the surnames of some famous genre directors!), and he was successful at the blending and deconstructing of different genre conventions much like celebrated directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez are famous for today(The film opens (In full color.) in a alien spacecraft as a failed experiment escapes. We follow its path down to Earth circa 1959 (Where this segment is filmed all in b& w! Brilliant. - "Take that, QT!"). We return to color for the Present Day (1986) and the rest of the film.) Unfortunately, Dekker never got the audience or the respect he deserved in his day, and besides "Robocop 3" (Yecchhh!), and some TV, has not worked very much since then. Hopefully, with the resurgence of these films on dvd, and with the great number of die hard "Creeps" scooping up the discs, his career can find a bit of a second wind...

So what does that mean? That I'm huge nerd? Well, yes. But also, what it means is that tonight it's just me, some Orville Redenbacher's and fucking Tom "Thrill Me." Atkins (One of the great horror movie icons of the 80's. John Carpenter's "Escape From New York" and "The Fog" (The original!!! The remake sucks basketballs!!!) & "Halloween III"(Yes, That "Halloween III"!) spittin' out some of the best damn one-liners ever written.




I've been watching nothing but horror flicks this month and this indeed a stupendous way to cap it off!

P.S. Next Criterion needs to get the rights to release David Fincher's "The Game" on DVD. I still have my Laserdisc. The special features are phenomenal (as is the norm with all other Fincher DVD's) including a great audio commentary with the director, star Michael Douglas and others involved with the making of this "classic" film. (Finger's crossed...)

I've also added a few more pieces of art to the gallery below (I'll add a new piece or two regularly.) - "The Widow"(an old sketchbook piece), "'Chop' Chef" (a detail from one of my early class assignments. I really like working with acrylic. You can paint on so many interesting surfaces and with infinite textures. I think I painted over some artist's tape that was laid down on the board. Fun stuff.), and finally another sketchbook piece with a lil' bit of a "spaghetti western" feel, "The Poster". Enjoy.

"Click" or see the "Art Gallery" below for larger images...


B