‘Creep’: a comedic horror flick
Written and photographed by Andrew Larimer
“Creep” is a movie that keeps audiences guessing from start to finish. They are never sure where it’s going to go. The film, directed by Patrick Brice, takes viewers on an unpredictable ride through a story that appears to defy genre boundaries.
The film depicts Aaron, played by Brice himself, who is low on money and comes across an online ad offering “$1000 for the day for filming service.”
He drives to a cabin in a remote mountain town to meet Josef, the creator of the ad, played by Mark Duplass. Josef explains he is stricken with a brain tumor and has two months to live. The film is to document what kind of man he was for his soon-to-be-born son.
Yet, something just wasn’t adding up. His concept of cancer and the video of his son brought his motives into question.
Although the unique and original film suggests horror, comical twists are inserted where, naturally, a scare would be expected. More laughs filled the room than screams, yet the screams left a more memorable taste in your mouth.
Unfortunately, as many horror films do, “Creep” joined the bandwagon by including scares designed to jolt the audience out of their seats. Although irrelevant to the storyline, these additional scenes did add some popcorn-spilling moments.
Brice wants the audience to believe that Josef is merely an odd guy, trying to be positive in the face of his cancer. This is apparent when he has Aaron film him in the bathtub as he conjures up how he would have bathed his “son” if he weren’t approaching death. When he grins at Aaron, there is the sense that the words coming through his teeth are nothing but a ploy.
Audience members fill seats in the Lucas Theater to see Patrick Brice’s “Creep” Thursday, Oct. 30.
The beauty of this unscripted film is how the characters rely on and bounce off one another to create scenes that vary from awkward to disturbing to downright funny. While revealing conjured confessions, Duplass tiptoes around his character’s actual thought process. Despite the twisted presentation, Duplass’s subtlety allows for an entertaining and effective scene.
The entirety of the movie was shot to imitate the look of a run-of-the-mill camcorder, giving rawness to the scenes and allowing the audience to soak up the realistic chemistry between the two men. While Josef was lucid in terms of normalcy, Aaron’s kind nature enabled him to accept the unrealistic aspects of Josef’s character.
Because this was only a two-person cast, it was essential for each character to achieve believability. They did.
As the story progressed, the audience began to understand Josef’s fake persona. Though his intentions do not become clear until the end, his character further exemplifies the continuous theme of unpredictability. Along with Aaron, the audience was a victim of the film – we all ate a recipe that smelled like horror and tasted like comedy.
After the credits began rolled, the audience got the opportunity to ask Brice questions.
“If you could have gone back in pre-production, what would you have done differently that could have aided the film?” asked a student.
“It would have been helpful if we knew we were making a horror film when we first started. But maybe not, too, because one of the things we were riding on were Mark’s performance and his innate ability to engage audiences,” said Brice. “It was fun to take this likeable guy and turn him into this twisted serial killer. As a filmmaker, being able to show it to friends and say it sucks right now, and how can I make it better, really helped in the pre-production. Therefore, I wouldn’t change much of anything, because we ended up being happy with the finished product.“
“Where did this idea come from?“ asked another student. “And please tell me it wasn’t based off something.”
“It is based on something, actually. Not what you would suspect, though. Mark and I are very good friends and we have a common love of weirdos. And even more so, a common love for awkward interactions,” said Brice. “We were thinking of Craigslist. Mark was trying to buy a bed one time and he eventually sat down and had coffee with the guy he was buying from. They ended up talking for an hour about the guy’s girlfriend issues. So in a way, it was based off encounters like that, but in a more twisted way.”
