10 Movie Ripoffs Better Than The Original

James Gunn's 2006 sci-fi horror-comedy Slither is a ton of fun, if also an extremely transparent riff/ripoff of Fred Dekker's 1986 film Night of the Creeps.

Both films revolve around alien slug-like creatures that invade Earth, infect human beings, and turn them into glorified zombies, while adopting a darkly comedic bent. Curiously, though Gunn has cited numerous influences on his own film - namely David Cronenberg's Shivers and The Brood - he's never mentioned Night of the Creeps, despite the core concept and execution being so similar.

To Gunn's credit, he also does more with the concept than Dekker did, playing up the giddy B-movie homages while working with far more sophisticated effects and a superior cast.

Both films are fun and honestly make for a rock-solid double bill. Plus, Dekker clearly has no qualms about the inspiration, not only downplaying the originality of his own concept but admitting that he himself cribbed from a bevy of popular films such as Alien, George Romero's zombie films, and even Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space.