Creep (2014) - A Fun But Flimsy Found Footage Flick

As a general principle, a rule of thumb if you will, let's all agree as a society to avoid situations where we follow strange men we don't know into the woods and stay the night at their cabin. Maybe it's just me, but that seems like it could potentially lead to some hazardous, perhaps life-threatening circumstances. Can we all agree on that? Good.

Now, on an unrelated note, let's talk about Creep, the 2014 ultra-low budget horror film from the minds of Patrick Brice and indie hero Mark Duplass, both of whom wrote the film and star in it, with Brice also directing. If the title of the movie seems on-the-nose, it's because it is. The audience can intuit what the movie is about before it even starts. It's not here to mince words or play games. This is a creepy movie about a creepy guy doing creepy things. What else were you expecting?

Creep's premise is startlingly simple. A mysterious man named Josef puts out a Craigslist ad calling for someone to spend the day with him and film their activities. Aaron, an amateur videographer looking for any way to make a buck, responds to the ad and meets Josef out in the middle of nowhere at his purported vacation home. This sets the stage for our story, and I bet you can guess where's it going. Although Josef initially appears like a harmless, jovial dude with a few odd quirks, those quirks grow increasingly more bizarre until it is obvious to everyone watching, and to Aaron, that something isn't quite right.

No extras. No additional cast members. Just two guys in the woods. Simple, right? You're taught in film school to develop concepts that are as straightforward to produce as possible. Don't conclude your story with a $100 million CGI-laden battle sequence if you've got fifty bucks in your bank account. Brice and Duplass commit themselves to this principle, and the result is a movie that I'm sure cost pennies to make.

And Creep is especially low-rent because - as the title of my review suggests - it's a found footage film. Many entries in the somewhat maligned found footage genre have no legitimate reason for utilizing the found footage format other than the fact that the producers wanted to minimize production costs. However, Creep possesses narrative justification for it being found footage. The film's use of genre conventions cleverly works in its favor.

The opening scenes of Creep are rather charming. In these introductory moments, the film has the tenor of a cringe comedy, with a fully naked Mark Duplass submerging himself in a bathtub and pretending to play with his unborn child, all while his dutiful cameraman watches and records. It's uncomfortable, for sure, but not really in a creepy way. It is, most certainly by design, quite funny. The movie progresses with this awkward, not-quite-creepy spirit, and at a particular point, it's meant to cross over into genuinely scary territory. There is a specific narrative beat that represents this transition. You'll know it when you see it.

Unfortunately, the spiral into all-out suspense did not have its desired effect on me, and Creep's final act proved to be a predictable, uninteresting slog with a maddening amount of unconscionable decision-making on the part of certain characters. The profound dearth of logic being employed by our protagonist especially is truly mind-boggling, and while this portion of the film is intended to be unsettling, I just found it frustrating.

Creep is by no means a bad movie. At just 77 minutes, it's a brisk watch that makes a point to not overstay its welcome. Mark Duplass makes for a devilishly convincing creep who successfully manipulates not only our protagonist Aaron, but the audience as well, and it's his compelling performance that largely makes the film.

However, it has an identity problem. I was unable to decipher whether it was a horror movie disguised as a comedy or a comedy disguised as a horror movie, and it seemed like the movie itself was confused in this regard as well. I personally believe it would have benefited from leaning into its more comedic sensibilities rather than diving headlong into suspense. While it successfully generates an uncomfortable atmosphere, its bombastic attempts at scream-out-loud scares fall laughably short.

Creep's tonal intentions are as unclear as its enigmatic titular character. Ultimately, it feels like a really effective proof of concept film that would be used to parlay funding for a feature.

C+

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