This one falls in the shakycam, point of view style that's so popular these days, that THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT ushered in and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY propelled. Flicks like this are a dime a dozen anymore, but this one made a big splash at the film fests and ol' Netflix picked it up as an exclusive back when it was first released. Obviously completely no budget- there's no soundtrack score, no special effects, no name actors, and well, for that matter, there's only like two MALE actors seen in the whole movie! Story follows a videographer going to a job that he got by responding to a Craig's List ad. For some reason, the videographer videos himself on the way up to the client's remote house cabin, cluing the audience in on what's going on and making some speculations of his own. Once he arrives at the remote cabin, we meet the guy who hired him, the titular CREEP, played to the wacky hilt by Mark Duplass. Turns out that Duplass just wants the videographer to follow him around and video him all day long as he mugs up for the camera. He says he has cancer, and a baby on the way with his wife, and just wants to document himself and talk to his son in case he passes away before the kid is born or too young to remember his dad. Sounds reasonable, right? Well, things get weird right off the bat, as Duplass strips naked and asks the video dude to film him taking a bath and goes into this long, creepy story about taking baths with HIS dad when he was little. Then we get to follow Duplass way deep into the woods where there's supposedly this "cancer curing" water area he wants to bathe in, and along the way, he keeps disappearing and jumping out at the videographer. There's miles and miles of footage and LONG BORING takes here, but you keep wondering what will happen. Duplass keeps it interesting and you wonder if he's just going to turn around and stab the videographer unexpectedly at any moment...then there's other moments where he seems genuine and sincere. He also puts on a Wolf Mask and goes a bit psycho with that on, but again...the video just keeps rolling. When the videographer can't find his keys to leave the cabin in the middle of nowhere, you know things aren't good...Briefly, the videographer gets the upper hand by drugging Duplass into unconsciousness, and takes a weird cell call from Duplass' sister, who claims that her brother is not only NOT married, he does NOT have cancer and is not quite SANE. Why the good videographer just doesn't call 9-1-1 at that moment and get things straightened out is BEYOND ME, but hey, this is a shakycam, reality POV movie, so all sense of reality from the real world automatically goes right out of the window, right? Our videographer hero eventually escapes, and the plot continues to get dumber as he keeps videoing himself at home, having nightmares about this Duplass character, and suddenly packages and DVDs start arriving in the mail from Duplass, and for some reason, instead of going to the cops and showing them all the evidence he has in his camera, he just keeps taping himself opening the packages and watching weird, vaguely threatening video clips that the unbalanced dude keeps sending him! I'm not sure why I kept watching the movie at this point, I guess you just want to find out what Duplass is up to and what he might do to this idjit videographer, but the ending is pretty lame and the twist at the end totally predictable and silly. CREEP runs only a scant 82 minutes (and minus the long end credits, probably only 78 minutes) but the "raw footage" feel of the movie makes it seem like it lasts DAYS. Hard to watch, silly, with downright amateur acting all around, CREEP is a weird entry in the "found video footage" genre, which like rap music, never seems to go away. As stupid and unsatisfying as the movie is, somehow...the very concept...sticks with you, though, so maybe there's more to this than meets the eye. Use caution on this one. Yellow flag.
This one falls in the shakycam, point of view style that's so popular these days, that THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT ushered in and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY propelled. Flicks like this are a dime a dozen anymore, but this one made a big splash at the film fests and ol' Netflix picked it up as an exclusive back when it was first released. Obviously completely no budget- there's no soundtrack score, no special effects, no name actors, and well, for that matter, there's only like two MALE actors seen in the whole movie! Story follows a videographer going to a job that he got by responding to a Craig's List ad. For some reason, the videographer videos himself on the way up to the client's remote house cabin, cluing the audience in on what's going on and making some speculations of his own. Once he arrives at the remote cabin, we meet the guy who hired him, the titular CREEP, played to the wacky hilt by Mark Duplass. Turns out that Duplass just wants the videographer to follow him around and video him all day long as he mugs up for the camera. He says he has cancer, and a baby on the way with his wife, and just wants to document himself and talk to his son in case he passes away before the kid is born or too young to remember his dad. Sounds reasonable, right? Well, things get weird right off the bat, as Duplass strips naked and asks the video dude to film him taking a bath and goes into this long, creepy story about taking baths with HIS dad when he was little. Then we get to follow Duplass way deep into the woods where there's supposedly this "cancer curing" water area he wants to bathe in, and along the way, he keeps disappearing and jumping out at the videographer. There's miles and miles of footage and LONG BORING takes here, but you keep wondering what will happen. Duplass keeps it interesting and you wonder if he's just going to turn around and stab the videographer unexpectedly at any moment...then there's other moments where he seems genuine and sincere. He also puts on a Wolf Mask and goes a bit psycho with that on, but again...the video just keeps rolling. When the videographer can't find his keys to leave the cabin in the middle of nowhere, you know things aren't good...Briefly, the videographer gets the upper hand by drugging Duplass into unconsciousness, and takes a weird cell call from Duplass' sister, who claims that her brother is not only NOT married, he does NOT have cancer and is not quite SANE. Why the good videographer just doesn't call 9-1-1 at that moment and get things straightened out is BEYOND ME, but hey, this is a shakycam, reality POV movie, so all sense of reality from the real world automatically goes right out of the window, right? Our videographer hero eventually escapes, and the plot continues to get dumber as he keeps videoing himself at home, having nightmares about this Duplass character, and suddenly packages and DVDs start arriving in the mail from Duplass, and for some reason, instead of going to the cops and showing them all the evidence he has in his camera, he just keeps taping himself opening the packages and watching weird, vaguely threatening video clips that the unbalanced dude keeps sending him! I'm not sure why I kept watching the movie at this point, I guess you just want to find out what Duplass is up to and what he might do to this idjit videographer, but the ending is pretty lame and the twist at the end totally predictable and silly. CREEP runs only a scant 82 minutes (and minus the long end credits, probably only 78 minutes) but the "raw footage" feel of the movie makes it seem like it lasts DAYS. Hard to watch, silly, with downright amateur acting all around, CREEP is a weird entry in the "found video footage" genre, which like rap music, never seems to go away. As stupid and unsatisfying as the movie is, somehow...the very concept...sticks with you, though, so maybe there's more to this than meets the eye. Use caution on this one. Yellow flag.
