Creep, 2014.
Directed by Patrick Brice
Starring Patrick Brice and Mark Duplass.
SYNOPSIS:
Videographer Adam is hired by the terminally ill Josef to film a series of mundane activities so that they might be shown to Josef’s unborn son, whose birth he is not likely to live long enough to witness. However, as Adam begins to film Josef’s activities, which include bathing the child, without a child to bathe, and wandering the woods marvelling at rocks and cliffs, he begins to doubt the truthfulness of his new client’s intentions, as Josef very quickly reveals himself to be something much more than mere eccentric with a “weird sense of humour”.
As said in my review for The Bay (2012) from earlier this month, I really don’t like the found footage genre. While I’ll admit that is has produced other great films like The Blair Witch Project (1999), Rec (2008) and……um others, but I find that the majority of them are boring haunted house rides that seem to think you only have to slam a door loudly to get scare people.
Well thankfully, I’ve found another break away from the herd of found footage mediocrity, in the form of Creep – a quirky little horror film that warns us not to go into the woods with an oddball who owns a wolf mask.
The acting from the film’s only stars, Patrick Brice (who also directs) and Mark Duplass (who also co-wrote and produces), is brilliant throughout. Brice’s Adam is essentially the audience in this scenario, constantly questioning the behaviour of Josef, and becoming increasingly unnerved by his antics as time goes on. Brice is a likeable and relatable protagonist, only willing to put up with so much strangeness for the sake of earning enough money to make ends meet.
Duplass’s Josef is certainly a strange performance to dissect, and I desperately want to go into detail, analysing the various facets and quirks of the character, but that would really be spoiling what is a deeply disturbing performance. Needless to say, though, you’ll be thinking twice before offering to videotape a dying man you meet on Craigslist after watching Duplass’ attempts to jump scare the audience into oblivion.
That little sentence closer there helpfully links us to the film’s scare factor, which does admittedly have a heavy use of jump scares, but while I normally hate jump scares, in this film they work, with Josef being is a one man jump scare machine. Seriously, have a drink every time he does it. The bastard gets you every time, making you jump and constantly dread the next quiet moment that you know are going to be broken by him.
But while the jump scares are effective, the film’s scariest moments are those that have no jumping at all; instead they rely on you really paying attention to the background where you can spot Josef lurking, or they feature Josef standing in the doorway, silent and swaying while clad in a wolf mask.
Creep also cleverly subverts some of the usual tropes that blight found footage films, in a nifty twist that I daren’t spoil for those who haven’t watched. I wish I could talk more about this film in depth, but I really don’t want to spoil it more than I have already – it really needs to be seen.
Creep is one of the better “found footage” outings and shows us that there’s still potential left in this otherwise boring overplayed genre. A deeply disturbing film that teaches you to be less naive when meeting people online, and also that you must never be left alone in the woods with Mark Duplass.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Graeme Robertson
Originally published October 21, 2016. Updated April 16, 2018.
