NO MOVIE.

I REPEAT.

NO MOVIE.

HAS EVER KICKED MORE CINEMATIC HORROR ASS.

THEN MARK DUPLASS AND PATRICK KACK-BRICE’S  “CREEP.”

Although I’m not sure I’d call it horror. But we’ll get into that. Today I’m going to do a sort of brief review of the movie as far as how it is as a Halloween movie. I fully plan on doing a deep analysis of both of the Creep movies in the future.

You know how some people watch the hit 90’s TV show “Friends” when they need to feel whole and comforted and just like a person? “Creep” is my “Friends.” It gives me faith in the film industry and nourishes my inner artist.

Now for the review.

“I love wolves. Because they love deeply, but they don’t know how to express it, and they’re often very violent and, quite frankly, murder the things that they love, and inside of the wolf is this beautiful heart. And yeah it’s misguided, and yeah occasionally it murders things. And this little wolf was so cute, it reminded me of you, honestly, you know, that moment I scared you in the woods. and it was… there was murder in your eyes, but it was like, it was baby murder, you’re not ready to accept that yet, and I want to encourage you to embrace your inner wolf, so take the wolf and enjoy it, and more importantly, take the knife, and don’t be afraid to murder it, because when you stick a knife in something, and you gut it and you really dig inside, I don’t know man, there’s all this beautiful stuff.”

“Creep” is about a man named Aaron (Patrick Kack-Brice) who answers an online Ad requesting a videographer for the day.   The Ad brings him to Josef (Mark Duplass), a man who claims to be shooting a video for his unborn son before he dies of cancer.

The two spend the day doing a variety of things. “Tubby time,” story time, pancake time, an adventure to find the river with the heart rock, whiskey, drugging, escaping, etc. All with an overtone of creepiness (roll credits). There’s a constant feel of awkwardness and unease that follows you throughout your viewing process. It’s hard to explain unless you’re experiencing it.

The first half of the film is the two men’s filming process together- up until Josef uncomfortably continues insisting Aaron stays the night. That is when Aaron slips sleeping pills in his whiskey and tries to escape. He runs into some hiccups, but makes it in the end. The second half of the film is Aaron documenting the various ways Josef has been stalking him. Sending boxes with knives and stuffed wolves, video diaries, and friendship lockets. Creepy, huh? Aaron makes one dumb move, agrees to meet Josef at a lake, and ends up getting crept (ha!) up on and hit in the back of the head with an ax by Josef. Tragic. We then learn that Josef has been doing this routine for quite awhile, as he adds Aaron’s tape to shelves and shelves of others.

I said earlier that this wasn’t horror. It is indeed horrifying, however. But this is an experiment. And a damn good one, at that. No music in the entire film. A cast of two. The singular camera, found footage style. This was two friends that had an idea, had a vision, and made it happen.

This is the type of film I aspire to make one day.

It’s refreshing to see movies take such big risks. I talked about this in my last two reviews, I’m talking about it now, and I’ll talk about it again in the future. In case you couldn’t tell, I’ve picked mostly movies I thoroughly enjoy.

I would say that this is an excellent Halloween movie. It’s spooky as hell, creepy as hell, and though it lacks any gore whatsoever (the ax scene is shown from very far away) it contains many lovely jump scares.