Review of Creep (2014) by D T — 08 Nov 2017

Mark Duplass remains the most criminally underrated, under celebrated, and most of all - a certified powerhouse actor who has established himself in the ranks of the upper-tiers of his fellow contemporary American male lead actors.

To say anything about Creep?s plot would be a disservice to those yet to see the film. As for the production, consider this the exception to the rule regarding how great a ?found footage film? can truly be.

Okay, I?ll spoil one thing: the final scene won?t be a victim running away from some sort of evil trying to kill them, as the screen jitters and shakes your mind into oblivion before being dropped on the floor at an insultingly awful angle when the big bad monster is supposed to be finally revealed, (ex: so it?s the OPPOSITE of such cop-out endings like The Blair Witch Project shamelessly delivered even though it wasn?t a bad movie up until that final marathon through the woods with a VHS camcorder being whirled in all sorts of mannerisms that conveniently kept the big reveal from being a reveal at all.) Instead, Creep subverts the found footage genre in ways too hard to describe, and it?s best to just encourage you to watch it, if for nothing else, than for Duplass?s force majeure performance, as he constantly ebbs and flows against your nerves, dropping overt and blunt emphasis in what his intentions actually are from the initial scene he?s in, but always charms and convincingly dialogues his way back in our good graces whenever he knows we?re on to whatever the hell he?s up to.

Further more, now that it?s 2017, once you finish this, you don?t have to wait! CREEP 2 is out and oh me oh my is it - dare I say it? - BETTER than the original? I?ll let you decide that one, but from the critical reception of the sequel already, Duplass has literally confirmed pre-production on the (final) third Creep film to be under way, where the concept of a trilogy was always the idea, but he had no clue if audiences or critics would take to the first film, or the second if he got this far. Well he has, and all signs point to a consensus agreement that these two creepy as hell duologue-formatted screenplays are returning investments and effort sufficiently. Like, extremely well.

I for one cannot wait.