Assured. If there was one word to describe what links 1986’s Night of the Creeps and 1987’S Monster Squad it is “assured.” The films hurtle through time, genres and tones, weaving together outrageous elements into a singular, delightful whole. Both films were the work of writer/director Fred Dekker (with Squad also having a co-writer credit to current geek demigod Shane Black) and the only thing more baffling than how he pulled off such remarkable feats with his first two films is how he seemed to fall off the face of the earth afterwards. As disheartening as the lack of follow through has been, it doesn’t take away from what an achievement it was for Dekker to get two films so right, so early.
Because, seriously, just look at the construction of the screenplay for Night of the Creeps. In the first ten minutes of the film, the audience has moved through three timelines, completely distinct in look and style, and been introduced to every single major character and plot point. We open on a chase scene in a space ship as freakish aliens fire laser cannons, then move to an extended black and white prologue set on Lover Lane in 1959 before finally settling into then-modern day 1985.
For what is ostensibly a children’s film, Monster Squad is no less adventurous. It opens with what appears to be a lost Hammer film finale, as Van Helsing and his squad burst into Dracula’s castle to dispose of his brides and attempt a ritual to open the gates of Purgatory. Neither film invests a great deal of time slowing down to explain how the various threads and elements will converge, instead trusting that you will be invested in the characters and their arcs enough to stick with them until the mayhem breaks out.
Watching both films recently, I was taken aback by just how focused they were. The double feature averages out to about eighty minutes apiece, but neither film feels especially rushed, with the exception of some of Squad’s third act, where you can feel the producers breathing down Dekker’s neck to keep things humming. In Creeps none of the main characters take an active stand against the invading slugs and their zombie hosts until almost an hour into the film. But by structuring his film this way, Dekker gave himself the ability to both steadily amp up to the wildest gore and creature FX in the picture, and to take the time and make sure that the audience loved and understood the protagonists completely.
So by the time Cynthia Cronenberg (Jill Whitlow), Chris Romero (Jason Lively) and Detective Cameron (Tom Fucking Atkins) make their last stand against the throngs of the slug-infested undead, the audience is not only delighting in seeing heads exploded and blood packs spurt (although good Lord does Dekker make sure there is plenty of that) but is genuinely invested in seeing each character escape with their lives. Often times genre films are weighted down with flat and uninteresting protagonists, the better for the audience to revel in the meat-grinder action, making Dekker’s commitment to investing the audience in the humanity beneath his throwback splatfest all the more important.
And that extends to Monster Squad. The premise is precious enough to be insulting: Adorable, monster-obsessed kids run afoul of Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, Wolfman, etc. You can probably imagine the treacly, painful version of that exact movie. Even if Dekker nailed the look of the monsters (he does) or the special, tragic nature of the individual creatures (he does) it would be easy for the kids to sink the movie with screaming, overacting, mugging, and all the other kid-centric-movie killers.
But no. Again, there’s a warmth and a humanity that shines through, with tiny moments between the kids and with their parents to remind you that these are people tangling with cosmic horror. Even in a film that clocks in at sub-eighty minutes, Dekker still finds breathing spaces where he can let quiet interactions strengthen our attachment to the heroes. The best scene in the movie doesn’t even feature a single onscreen monster. It’s a nighttime sequence where one of the Squad has snuck out onto his roof to use binoculars to watch a drive-in slasher movie. His dad, a cop coming off a bad night of tough cases and an angry domestic dispute, quietly joins him with burgers and a small smile. It’s lovely, and it makes Dracula’s later declaration, “I will have your son” pack an even greater punch.
(OK, I lied. The best scene in Monster Squad is “Wolfman’s Got Nards!” Because of course it is.)
But if Night of the Creeps and Monster Squad work tremendously as scripts, they are equally accomplished as fully realized films. Unlike so many other writers-turned-directors, Dekker seems to have an immediate and intuitive understanding of how to use the frame. And I’m not just talking about pretty compositions (though he conjures up some doozies) but in the way that the camera is used to emphasize story and character.
There’s a great scene early in Night of the Creeps where doomed, crippled sidekick JC (Steve Marshall) rails at Chris for spending so much time bemoaning his troubles in life, reminding him of how much JC tries to help Chris be happy. Watch the way that Dekker gently pushes in on JC as he gets angrier and angrier, emphasizing both his escalating frustration and heightening the intimacy of the moment. It’s a nakedly emotional scene, one that’s almost shocking amidst the crowd of rubber and goo of the creature feature subgenre.
Maybe that’s why both Night of the Creeps and Monster Squad have such strong afterlives after flopping at the box office. Despite never receiving acceptable home video release (Creeps was further marred by an awful ending that the studio mandated after disliking Dekker’s original conclusion, which they viewed before visual effects were completed) both films fostered passionate cult followings which badgered the rights holders until both films received excellent DVD releases with loads of special features and commentaries. Quality won out over commerce.
And Dekker? After the one-two punch of excellence, he was hired to direct Robocop III. After his version of Robocop III turned out to be Robocop III, he all but vanished from pop culture. From Robocop III’s 1993 release, Dekker does not have a single writer’s credit until doing work for Star Trek: Enterprise in 2001. But don’t cry for Mr. Dekker. Only a few weeks ago it was announced that he and his old cohort, Mr. Shane Black, were hired to collaborate on a new Predator film. What will that film look like?
If his early works are any indication, it will be a film that honors the past while being true to its own time, that revels in the monstrous and the otherworldly without ever losing sight of the human core we need for stories to matter.
And maybe, just maybe, he can finally confirm whether or not Predator has nards.
