WAS HISTORY MADE AT THE NEW BEVERLY LAST NIGHT?

The turn out for the The Monster Squad/Night of the Creeps double feature at the New Beverly last night was epic – the place sold out. People sat in the aisles. And while I knew most of the people were there for the bafflingly popular The Monster Squad, I was so excited to see that the theater stayed very packed for the endlessly superior Night of the Creeps.

But the real action happened during the Q&A with director Fred Dekker (and by the way, to the guy at Aint It Cool who wrote up last night: Julia’s not the cashier at the New Beverly. She essentially runs the New Beverly. She’s the heart of the joint, and she’s the one who makes all the movies you see happen. And she’s extraordinarily cool. Show some respect!). The Monster Squad co-writer Shane Black showed up unexpectedly, and I’m not sure if most people in attendance realized how historic that was: Black and Dekker, who had once been best friends and housemates in the legendary screenwriter enclave ‘The Pad O’Guys,’ but the two had not been in touch for a long, long time. Both men have been political about it, but I sensed that there was some bad blood between them, something that Dekker hinted at last night when he said that he couldn’t get Shane to return his calls for the The Monster Squad DVD.

Of course, things may not have turned out so well. Black came to the front of the theater during the Q&A, asking for Dekker’s number. Dekker told him to wait until the end; Shane left. Ruh roh! But if they do manage to get in touch, Lionsgate wants them to do a new video commentary for a BluRay version of The Monster Squad, and Black seemed to be up for it. We’ll see.

There’s also hope for a DVD of Night of the Creeps, although I may be more optimistic than Dekker is. The film has apparently been making the rounds on MonstersHD or one of those channels, and I have to imagine that if a hi def transfer has been made it would be silly not to at least release a bare bones version. And watching Night of the Creeps last night I was surprised at how well the film still works; the finale is a little small, due to the miniscule budget, but there’s just so much fun to be had with the film and so many great little moments and lines. It’s much less gory than I remember, though.

Sitting there as Black and Dekker reunited (I’m guessing – they could have gotten in touch earlier, but Julia told me that Shane showing up was a real surprise to everyone) I realized just how much I love living in LA. This is the kind of thing that can happen on a random Friday night here.