Naty's Spooky Corner

Creep

★★★★★

Sunday, March 7, 2021 at 11:11 PM

The “creep”-y 2014 found footage film is a psychological horror film that follows the unfortunate acquaintanceship between a struggling videographer and a rather interesting client. The victim in question, Aaron, accepts a craigslist request to help a dying father, Josef, record a video diary for his soon-to-be born child in a remote location. The two spend the majority of the day together completing a series of increasingly strange activities, ranging from a simulated (and naked!) “tubby time” to an unsettling song and dance paired with a terrifying wolf mask ineptly named “Peach Fuzz”. Aaron understandably grows increasingly weary of his odd patron, which is only exacerbated after he admits to having raped his wife during a savage and animalistic spell. Disgusted and now concerned for his life, Aaron tries to escape from the isolated cabin and luckily manages to do so - that is of course now with a stalker following closely behind. The rest of the film can only be watched in a panicked state as the viewer helplessly watches Josef engage in increasingly hostile activities towards Aaron, leaving only enough room in the story for one of them to survive.

Now for the spoilers:

Okay ya’ll so I’ll be honest - I did not find this film to be scary in any way. In fact, as soon as my spidey senses started going off about “Josef’s” character, I knew that I would have left that situation a whole lot sooner than Aaron did. What was most terrifying about the film was watching Aaron actively choose to ignore all the startlingly bright red signs in front of him that were screaming “Hey, that's a psycho murderer!!!” and instead choose to continue putting himself in danger by being around Josef. Even after we see Aaron somehow - because of course it’s never fully explained - escape from the extremely isolated cabin, he continues to only take the most simple action to protect himself from what one can easily assume is a deranged and dangerous person. As a result, Josef is easily able to infiltrate his home and continue to terrorize him until his untimely end - death by Peach Fuzz.

I’m not sure if it’s because I am a pretty skeptical person or because I’ve watched way too many horror movies but I found it difficult to buy into the plot of the film at all. Instead of playing into the story’s ambiguity during the beginning of the film Josef was obviously too psychotic, whereas Aaron’s character was either exceptionally trusting or stupid or both. What was especially frustrating was to see him fail to properly document all instances of when he was being stalked in order to build a case and be able to legally protect himself. Which of course, meant that his incompetence would ultimately lead to his demise. If nothing else, I hope that this painfully predictable film could at least serve as a message to its viewers about the importance of protecting yourself against all the “Josefs” of the world and to always, always be skeptical.

Scary Score: 2/5

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