Just when you think the found footage concept is incapable of being fresh again, even after we’re regularly surprised by movies like Chronicle and Sinister doing interesting and effective new things with the idea, here comes another one worth your time. Patrick Brice‘s Creep seems almost like a satire of the style, a subversion of all the expectations we have with these kinds of movies. It’s at least the latter, and it’s apparently an impressive mix of horror and comedy, but not in the way we normally think of horror comedy.
The trailer above is a blurb-filled promo, and of course the most notable quote for us is our own, flashing first on screen: “Wonderfully unsettling.” But not to dismiss Rob Hunter’s praise, the one that got my attention more is The Playlist’s claim that it’s a mix of What About Bob? and Fatal Attraction. Maybe it’s because I’m less of a horror guy and more of a What About Bob? guy. And I could honestly accept Mark Duplass filling in the Bill Murray role if that comedy was ever to be remade.
Duplass plays a guy dying of brain cancer who hires a videographer to help make a day-in-the-life video diary for his unborn child. Brice plays the videographer, who starts to to become uncomfortable with the job but isn’t allowed to leave. On the surface it sounds like a lot of other thrillers involving a disturbed character who creates disturbing situations for the movie’s protagonist, not out of evil intentions but out of a strange, maybe stalker-ish obsession. But the found footage style makes it unique among them, and vice versa.
Here is some additional favor from Hunter’s review for FSR from last year’s Fantasia International Film Festival:
Duplass’ experience with unscripted films is a benefit here as he and Brice are able to talk naturally, feeling each other out the way two strangers would. It also allows the conversations to swing wildly towards delightfully unexpected places of both mirth and misgiving. These guys could very well be in a more typical mumblecore drama, but here their weight and depth serves to make the moments of terror and apprehension that much stronger.
Creep hits iTunes on June 23rd and then will be available to stream on Netflix beginning July 14th.
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