Creep (2015)
While not the first horror film to utilize the documentarian format, The Blair Witch Project is undoubtedly responsible for ushering in the era of the found-footage subgenre. The reason is as simple as the storyline: it's cost-effective to assemble a trio of unknown actors rife with improvisational ability, deposit them in the woods, nature's most organically nightmarish setting, and observe them as they gradually lose their sanity to the paranoia of being hunted by a legendary witch. A decade later, Paranormal Activity reignited horror fans' obsession with found footage, placing a long-term couple in a similar environment. Only instead of the woods, the couple is stripped of their sense of safety in the supposed comfort of their own home, where the natural darkness of the night takes on a sinister ambience as a demonic presence from one of their pasts re-latches itself onto them.
From that point onward, so began a long-running franchise whose first three installments were a critical success. As a result, the found-footage subgenre was reborn, typically overlapping with the supernatural. How refreshing, then, that Patrick Brice and Mark Duplass, the ambitious creative team behind the psychological chiller, Creep, have put their heads together to reinvent the increasingly played-out found-footage subgenre with the most terrifying entry since the inaugural Blair Witch Project in 1999, blending the immersive handheld camerawork of a documentary with a story whose antagonist is a flesh-and-blood serial killer rather than another member of the supernatural family.
In a similar fashion to how George A. Romero invented the wheel for the modern zombie film with his directorial debut, Night of the Living Dead, Patrick Brice, likewise marking his directorial debut, makes use of a mostly single domestic setting, minimal cast (in which he portrays the protagonist), artfully unprofessional camerawork, and a plot as simple and straightforward as it is inventive and unpredictable to produce a brilliantly unsettling two-hander en route to an ending that's bluntly and bloodlessly breathtaking.
Aaron Franklin (Patrick Brice) is a freelance videographer who has accepted a job offer through Craigslist to travel to a secluded cabin in the mountains of Crestline, California. Upon his arrival, Aaron meets his client, Josef (Mark Duplass), an unabashedly eccentric, clearly wealthy older man who purports to have been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor that has left him with only two to three months left to live. Josef's wife, Angela (Katie Aselton, the real-life wife of Duplass), is pregnant with their first child, a son they've tentatively named "Buddy." Inspired by the plot of Bruce Joel Rubin's 1993 drama, My Life, Josef tasks Aaron with filming a video diary of him so he may display the man he was for Buddy, who is expected to be born after his father has already passed away. Though Aaron becomes instantly uneasy by Josef's singularly uninhibited personality and contradictory statements, he agrees to remain by Josef's side with his camera in hand, sympathetic to his client's tragic plight and desperate for the easy one-day $1,000 reward. However, as the day turns to night, and Josef's actions become more obsessive, unpredictable, and threatening, Aaron comes to realize that his employer's intentions may not be so honest or wholesome, and returning home may prove a greater challenge than anticipated.
Inspired by Brice's real-life experiences on Craigslist, though hopefully nowhere near as dark or violent as depicted here, the plot of Creep presents itself as a bizarre "mismatched buddy" comedy tinged with the emotional sincerity and underlying poignancy of a cancer drama, strategically withholding its true identity as a sinister portrait of a manipulative serial killer until the comfort of the sun subsides into the unknown menace of nighttime. In crafting The Blair Witch Project, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez forewent a traditional screenplay in favor of an outline that detailed the essence of scenarios while permitting their cast the freedom to improvise their dialogue accordingly. Patrick Brice and Mark Duplass adopt a nearly identical guerrilla approach, foregoing a script and constructing their movie from a series of improvised conversations with one another, refining it during filming. It's an audacious tactic that pays off in spades, with both filmmakers using Creep as a reminder that when it comes to crafting an elementally effective spine-tingler, a Hollywood budget means next to nothing compared to an isolated setting and a heart-stopping villainous performance. As Randy Meeks explained in Scream, "That's the beauty of it all: simplicity."
With Brice both behind and in front of the camera, alongside his co-creator, co-star, and longtime friend, Duplass, the filmmakers concoct a balls-to-the-wall story that explores the one-sided friendship between a seemingly lonely, socially awkward, deeply troubled pathological liar and his cash-strapped, passive videographer, grounding the horror not in jump scares (though there are a handful) or bloodshed, but in the unsettling, cringe-inducing, awkwardly open-hearted personality and increasingly ominous quirks of its titular antagonist. And just when Brice and Duplass have duped their audience into thinking they know how the story will end, the geniuses upend expectations and pivot unexpectedly to something different: a stalker thriller.
Pulling off a quadruple feat of directing, starring, story-creating, and shooting, Patrick Brice holds his camera steady to capture the serene gorgeousness of his primary mountain home setting -- a multitude of trees and rocks, steps leading up to the front yellow door of Josef's cabin, a lake, and mountains. The first reel of Creep transpires at Josef's alleged residence, a peaceful, isolated, picturesque cottage that signifies his fabricated accumulated wealth and exacerbates Aaron's ratcheting feelings of paranoia and helplessness. Save one confessional moment in a diner in which Duplass takes hold of the camera and shifts the focus to Brice, Brice is the man behind the lens throughout the majority of Creep's fat-free 77-minute runtime, and he handles the responsibility with the confidence and control of a professional cinematographer. The camera shakes appropriately when the characters walk or run to reflect the often unglamorous visual reality of documentary filmmaking, careful never to render an important detail unintelligible. We can always discern what is happening in a shot, where we are, what we're looking at, and from who's perspective. When Brice wants to capture the emotions passing across his co-star's face, the camera remains steady.
While he avoids the kind of ostentatious shots expected of a more conventional motion picture, Brice composes one standout that is so ominous, beautiful, and unforgettable that it became the very poster for the movie: a silhouette of Josef against a porch light as he stands at the top of his outer stairs, looking down at Aaron. Editor Christopher Donlon lingers on this centerpiece composition to symbolize the darkness and unknowability lurking beneath Josef's deceptively sunny and demonstrative exterior. In Brice's most daring flourish, he turns off the monitor of his camera while Josef divulges a story in which he snuck into his own home through a back window, tied his wife up in her sleep, and raped her while disguised by a wolf mask to satiate her sly fetish for bestiality. With Josef's darkly amusing monologue both spoken aloud and written in captions, Brice and Duplass use the pitch-black screen as a canvas onto which our imaginations may paint a vividly disturbing reenactment of spousal molestation.
Although Creep functions as a two-hander between its imaginative creators, the primary focus of attention is placed on Mark Duplass. Until the second half after Aaron escapes from Josef's home and returns to his own, Brice shines the spotlight almost exclusively on Duplass, and he lives up to his unflattering titular descriptor from the moment he fake-scares his introduction outside Aaron's car. At once petrifying, sociable, charismatic, pathetic, and enigmatic, Duplass makes Josef one of the hands-down creepiest modern horror villains to ever haunt the screen. He presents himself as a playful, open-hearted middle-aged man rapidly dying of cancer yet determined to make the most of his remaining time on the planet for the sake of an unborn son he'll never meet. It's a role that would be easier for a woman to inhabit, as Josef possesses a number of effeminate qualities, yet Duplass plays it as though he were born to.
He's phenomenally assured, conveying a joy of performing quality every second he's onscreen. Duplass conveys Josef's affectionate side, feeling zero qualms about enveloping his male co-star in spontaneous hugs, as well as his complete lack of inhibition, evinced straight out of the gate when he strips off his clothing and takes a bath with his imaginary son in front of Brice. (To Aaron's relief, Josef tells him that he's not getting in the tub with him.) This scene represents the first window into Josef's deranged personality. A fully grown, normal-looking, supposedly married heterosexual man submerging himself in a tub, Duplass playacts the role of a loving father, seating an imaginary infant on his nude lap, sniffing his feet, contorting his face in lighthearted disgust. He's so immersed in this heartfelt, wistful fantasy that it's jaw-droppingly creepy. Duplass is both heartbreaking, playacting an intimately beautiful moment he'll never share with his future son, and blood-freezing, as he's playacting it before the eyes of an adult male stranger he just met moments earlier.
Duplass' performance is like a male companion piece to Kathy Bates' as Annie Wilkes in Misery. Unlike the 1991 Oscar winner, Josef never erupts into a shrill tirade of self-righteous indignation. He maintains his composure even when visualizing his most abhorrent and gruesome thoughts. Duplass vacillates unpredictably between the childlike exuberance and admirable seize-the-day optimism of a man who refuses to wallow in self-pity over an unchangeably fatal diagnosis and chooses to live every numbered day as though it were his last, and the tearful terror and vulnerability of knowing that at any given moment, it could be. His smile can transform from good-natured to sinister, depending on how long it's maintained. Like Bates' delusional and bipolar nurse, Duplass inspires a degree of sympathy in his loneliness and longing for companionship. He relays Josef's rape anecdote in a soft voice that's darkly comical in its matter-of-factness. He possesses the power to intimidate with the sudden, nearly imperceptible raising of his characteristically level voice.
In his most heart-stopping display of chameleonic versatility, Duplass shifts in the blink of an eye from shedding tears of fear of impending death to scampering away like a child who's been caught red-handed and hiding behind his "Peachfuzz" persona, putting on a wolf mask, blocking the front door, nodding and shaking his head as responses, growling menacingly. Duplass is equally as blood-curdling whether dancing and singing the Peachfuzz theme song under the wolf mask or sitting still, looking directly into the camera, his placid face belying the wolf-like beast preparing to claw its way through the deceptively pleasant surface. He suggests a repressed homosexuality that could be genuine or a ploy to disarm his victims.
While Duplass is gifted the showier and more career-defining role, Patrick Brice's contribution in front of the camera is equally as crucial. As Aaron, he assumes the role of the avatar of the viewer. We witness Josef's bizarro behavior and increasingly terrifying actions through Aaron's eyes (and lens). Aaron is the Paul Sheldon to Josef's Annie Wilkes: the reaction to Josef's action. Brice plays him as a fish out of water, an ordinary young man struggling to make a living and willing to tolerate a client's eccentricities if needed. Passive, patient, and even-tempered, Brice reacts the way the majority of people in his position would. Driven by a relatable desperation for $1,000, he subtly conveys discomfort to Josef's behavior, taking hesitant pauses before moving forward or replying to an alarming confession, but doesn't want to make waves with the man lending him the dough, up front in cash no less.
Watching a character like Aaron, it's tempting to roll your eyes and shout at the screen for him to run out of the house, get back into his car, and hightail it back home the second Josef steps into his tub. But thanks to Brice's honest and goodhearted performance, we understand why he doesn't. In addition to needing the money, Aaron is caught between feeling pity for Josef's loneliness and limited lifespan, and restricted by the fact there is nobody to turn to for help. He's driven himself into a world where the only occupants are him and Josef. Like James Caan in Misery, Brice maintains his composure even as his anxiety mounts, evinced in his terrified whisper over the phone to Josef's "wife," revealed to be his sister, and the rising desperation in his voice as he pleads for Josef to return his car keys and let him go home.
Considering that Brice and Duplass are playing off each other without the structure of a script, the dialogue is brilliantly improvised. You would never tell that they're making up their lines as they go along. They immerse themselves from head to toe in their characters and situation, revealing facets of their personalities, motivations, and backstories in a way that rings natural and unforced. In a revealing moment in which the spotlight is suddenly shifted to Aaron during lunch at a diner, he divulges a childhood memory of his greatest shame: a bout of urinary incontinence on a playground in front of his friends. His desperation for money is implied through an indirect confession and his knee-jerk reaction to Josef's litmus test-promise of hidden money in his boot.
Josef's motivations and background are left indeterminate. While the reveal that everything Josef has said is a bald-faced lie -- the pregnant wife, the fatal brain tumor, the mountain home -- doesn't come as a total shock, he utters them with such sincerity and commitment that when Aaron intercepts a phone call from Angela, who calmly instructs him to get as far away from her brother as possible, we share in Aaron's betrayal of trust. Duplass makes it impossible to ascertain the truth from lies or legitimate delusions. In an instance of asking a question on behalf of the viewer, Josef uses a vaguely threatening question about the sight of an axe to blur the line between dark humor and ominous foreshadowing. He also uses contradictory statements to create fear and uncertainty. One moment, he insists that a nearby diner called Billy Bear's makes "the best pancakes in the world." Once inside, he studies the menu and wonders aloud "what's good here." When confronted by Aaron with a reminder that he said he and his family used to dine there all the time for pancakes, Josef hesitates before uttering the quick-thinking explanation that they changed the menu.
Editor Christopher Donlon uses long takes of Brice's most suspenseful sequences -- Aaron moving away from the center of the frame to reveal Josef skulking outside his front door in the middle of the night before crouching down at his return, Aaron walking cautiously through Josef's cottage after he disappears from his hearth, Josef standing against his front door in his Peachfuzz mask, refusing to let Aaron leave, Aaron searching for Josef outside his home at night in his backyard -- to allow the dread to marinate to a nearly excruciating degree, priming us for a catharsis that never materializes. Brice and Donlon likewise film Duplass in long takes to accentuate his eccentric, capricious personality, thereby transferring Aaron's uncomfortability to the viewer.
At the end of the first reel, which culminates in a scuffle between Aaron and Josef, Brice cuts to static to imply the fatal yet ambiguous outcome common in found-footage horror, only to reveal moments later that Aaron managed to escape, thereby confounding expectations. In a case of misdirection, Donlon cuts from the seemingly conclusive confrontation to daytime footage of Josef lugging trash bags uphill and digging a hole. The implication is that Josef killed Aaron, dismembered his corpse, and is now burying him. In a more conventional version of Creep, that would have marked the ending. When the screen suddenly pauses, Brice pulls the camera back to reveal the footage as belonging to a DVD being viewed by Aaron, who somehow made it back home with his life and limbs intact. With the story now relocating to Aaron's home, and a major found-footage trope obliterated, all bets are off.
The Peachfuzz mask, a Halloween mask of a wolf purchased at a 99-cent store, evokes the cost-effective simplicity of Michael Myers' mask, itself a William Shatner mask spray-painted white and stolen from a hardware store. Brice and Duplass supply it with a twisted, darkly comical backstory that imbues the already-scary expression with additional menace, and a deceptively child-friendly theme song that's both comforting and endearingly unimaginative.
As is expected of a horror film rooted in the real world, devoid of fantastical elements, Brice and Duplass run afoul of a handful of plot holes that disrupt the reality of their world. The police's ineptitude and indifference toward Aaron's concerns about Josef are blatantly preposterous, perpetuating the stereotype of their uselessness in the horror genre. Because Aaron doesn't know Josef's real name or address, the police refuse to get involved, despite the fact that Aaron has been sent a DVD by Josef featuring him within. Overall, Aaron demonstrates intelligence and proactivity, changing the lock on his front door, leaping out of bed with a knife at the sound of a potential intruder. But for some reason, while he sleeps with his camera turned on and recording him, he doesn't think to actually review the footage the next morning. If he had, he would have seen Josef breaking into his home and cutting off a lock of his hair in his sleep. At that point, the police would have had to have taken action. More questionably, when Aaron wakes up one morning, he witnesses indisputable evidence of an intrusion -- a slit window screen and another DVD from Josef -- and neglects to report it to the police. How does Josef even figure out Aaron's address in the first place? When Josef requests that Aaron meet up with him at a lake to make amends, he actually complies, his fear suddenly superseded by compassion. Rather than have police accompany him at least, Aaron simply positions his camera on himself and sets his phone to speed-dial 911.
His sense of self-preservation takes a bit of a nosedive in the final reel, but it's out of necessity to pave the way for an ending that's as daringly unpredictable as it is spine-chilling. As Aaron sits on a park bench, awaiting Josef's arrival, Josef sneaks up behind him and hacks him to pieces with an axe. Theoretically, this ending is shocking and subversive in its brazen willingness to murder its audience surrogate, and so coldly, quickly, and unceremoniously, at that. Admittedly, the lack of parkgoers in a public park is more than a little convenient to enable the climax, but it's in the execution where Brice and Duplass knock it out of the park. Playing out in deafening silence, Brice captures the moment in a wide shot, contrasting the tranquil, beautiful scenery of the lake and mountain homes with the apprehension of a looming murder. Brice paces the moment of truth slowly and patiently, holding the camera on Josef for an excruciatingly protracted beat to wring every last drop of foreboding and raise doubt as to the outcome.
First, Josef puts on his Peachfuzz mask. Then he extracts an axe from his overcoat (the same one he asked Aaron if he thought he was going to kill him with earlier). He raises the axe overhead, gripping it behind his back for a prolonged moment. Surely, Aaron will sense Josef behind him and turn around in time to evade. Maybe in a Hollywood interpretation. Under Brice and Duplass' fearless and uncompromising vision, Josef swings the axe downward into the top of Aaron's head with a thud. Brice doesn't employ a score to build up to the kill or a scare chord to accentuate it. He favors a matter-of-fact approach. Because the hacking transpires from a distance, nary a drop of blood spatters onto the screen. It's silent and bloodless, yet deadly and suffused with Hitchcockian suspense. Brice emulates the sensation of watching a snuff film: unglorified, unglamorous, encouraging its viewers to scream at the soon-to-be victim to turn around, all too aware that they can't hear us and aren't going to. After all, a snuff film definitionally confirms their fate beforehand.
In the end, as is typically the rule in found-footage horror, evil triumphs over good. Aaron is reduced, literally and figuratively, to nothing more than another victim in the growing body count of a deceitful, manipulative madman who thrives on the blood of innocence. However, on account of his innate kindness and naive trust, Aaron is gifted the label of his favorite. Like an insatiable shark who's regained its appetite shortly after its last feeding, Josef changes his name and resumes the hunt for fresh blood, opening the door for a sequel and potential franchise -- a threat as ominous as it is wholeheartedly welcome.
7.8/10
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