Keep Watching How Creep And Creep 2 Revitalize Found Footage Horror

Keep Watching: How ‘Creep’ And ‘Creep 2’ Revitalize Found Footage Horror

By Chris Evangelista/Oct. 25, 2017 11:00 am EST

The found footage horror film is, for the most part, dead. The cause of death was overexposure – after producers realized how quick and easy (and cheap!) it would be to create such films, the multiplexes became choked with them. You couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a found footage/faux documentary chiller (note: please don’t swing cats, alive or dead; it’s mean).Yet every now and then, someone will resurrect the idea, for better or worse. Usually worse. Then there’s the Creep series. With Creep and Creep 2 (with the potential for a Creep 3), Patrick Brice and Mark Duplass have found clever new ways to reinvigorate the found footage subgenre. Better than that, they’ve found ways to actually make such a medium seem practical in terms of the story.Spoilers follow.

Creep

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you force yourself to tolerate another person’s weird, uncomfortable behavior just to avoid seeming rude? Where someone keeps acting completely off-kilter, but you don’t want to draw attention to it, because that would break the social contract? That’s what Patrick Brice’s funny, unnerving Creep is like, stretched to a feature-length film.The brain-child of Brice and Mark Duplass, Creep takes an awkward situation and makes it even more awkward, to the point where the tone shifts from comedy to horror in a subtle yet jarring manner. As a society, many of us have adapted (or perhaps the correct word would be “devolved”) to being openly cruel and confrontational when we’re in the comfort of our own homes and hidden behind a computer screen, but it’s a different story entirely in person. Most people want to avoid confrontation. Creep asks, “What if someone who was truly disturbed exploited that to deadly effect?““Patrick had made this documentary short called Maurice about the owner of one of the last pornography theaters in Paris,” Duplass said, “and I noticed the way he was and what he got from this guy. So there was a trust, and it’s the nature of how Patrick is. He just loves people and he doesn’t judge them…And I saw that element and I was like, what if we take that element in you and created a more extreme character, someone who is just desperate for love and will really stick around and trust people too much?“In Creep, Brice plays Aaron, a videographer looking to make a quick buck. He answers a vague Craigslist ad and travels to a scenic yet very remote mountain cabin where he meets his client, the mysterious Josef (Duplass). Josef explains that he’s dying of cancer, and he wants Patrick to record a day in his life for his unborn son. Josef admits he got this idea from the Michael Keaton movie My Life, and while Aaron has no qualms with the job at first, Josef’s increasingly strange behavior starts to give him pause. The very first thing Josef asks Aaron to do is to film him taking a bath as he pantomimes giving his unborn baby a “tubby time.” Soon after, Josef introduces Aaron to the mask for a character he claims his father made up – a disturbing wolf named “Peachfuzz.” It only gets weirder from there.When Creep came out in 2014, found footage as a whole had become boring and unnecessary, especially in regards to horror. There was a pointlessness to it – why, we’d ask ourselves again and again, is this even being presented in this style? Yet Creep found clever new ways to make it all work. In one sequence, the camera is left running on a table, filming a wide shot of Aaron frantically searching for his missing keys that is very effective. Later, there are several clever transitions, as the camera is spun away from the action to reveal that it’s actually been filming another screen showing footage the entire time – found footage within found footage. Little tricks like this add a neat aesthetic to Creep.For most of it’s run time, the audience isn’t entirely sure where Creep is going. Duplass, as the unnerving Josef, uses his mumblecore roots to full effect; he has a remarkable ability to talk-out what he’s thinking and make it somehow sound both realistic and also subtly false. When Josef’s behavior escalates to levels that even the polite Aaron can’t ignore, we can almost believe Josef’s explanations because Duplass sells them so well. Rather than just a one-note weirdo, Duplass creates a layered character with Josef. Every time Josef does something weird, he’s quick to offer a seemingly genuine apology. It makes the character somehow endearing despite all his lunacy. All of this serves to make Creep’s ending, where Josef murders Aaron, all the more shocking. This sequence too makes remarkable use of the found footage angle, with Josef setting a camera up at a great distance, presenting us with a wide shot that lingers as Josef, wearing his Peachfuzz mask, creeps up on Aaron and axes him to death.The viewer can’t help but come away with a sense of shock. What seemed like an incredibly awkward comedy has just become something more terrifying, and the found footage aesthetic has lulled us into a sense of security in a way. Since this has been Aaron’s movie the whole time, we assume that he gets out of this okay. Yet the final moment of the film reveals that this isn’t Aaron’s movie. It’s Josef’s. We’ve been duped, and rather than inspiring anger, this twist is remarkably effective.

Keep Watching

What makes Creep 2 so creepy is the way it continues to find clever new ways to put the faux documentary angle to good use. In 2017, we as a society are even more obsessed with filming and recording ourselves than when the first film hit in 2014. We’ve become a society that lives through screens, always desperately trying to capture a moment with our own personal recording devices we have tucked away in our pockets. If we don’t Instagram, or SnapChat, or even just take a photo of a moment, can we even truly say it happened?We’ve been conditioned to act like this. To in a sense put on a show for our peers, desperately hoping someone, somewhere, finds a connection. This logic is hardwired into the Creep series, where the filmmakers should use common sense, turn the camera off, and get the hell out of there. But they don’t. Because they want that connection. They want to record it all, and hope that the recording will somehow serve as a landmark. A sign that for a moment in time, they existed.As the situation in Creep 2 becomes more and more dangerous, Sara grows more and more apprehensive. But she keeps filming. She has to. She needs that connection. She needs her work to mean something, and the only way it could mean anything is if someone notices. At the start of the film, after Aaron tells her he’s a serial killer, she confesses to her camera that she usually doesn’t do things like this, but maybe that’s the reason why no one is watching Encounters. She needs to take a risk, hoping it leads to a reward.Perhaps that’s the true brilliance of the Creep series. We as a society are forever doomed to be stuck searching for connection through documentation. Photos of the meals we eat plastered across Instagram. A sea of a million rectangular lights going up at concerts as the crowd forgets to watch the show and instead attempts to contain it. The Creep series, like the best found footage films, understands that as a society, we not only have to keep filming, we also have to keep watching. We’re a society of voyeurs looking for a fix. Like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window, we’re forever stuck gazing out at our neighbors, and in turn wondering if they’re gazing back at us. The Creep series understands that if you’ve ever had the funny feeling that you’re being watched, it’s probably because you are. How terrifying is that?

Keep Watching: How ‘Creep’ And ‘Creep 2’ Revitalize Found Footage Horror

By Chris Evangelista/Oct. 25, 2017 11:00 am EST

The found footage horror film is, for the most part, dead. The cause of death was overexposure – after producers realized how quick and easy (and cheap!) it would be to create such films, the multiplexes became choked with them. You couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a found footage/faux documentary chiller (note: please don’t swing cats, alive or dead; it’s mean).Yet every now and then, someone will resurrect the idea, for better or worse. Usually worse. Then there’s the Creep series. With Creep and Creep 2 (with the potential for a Creep 3), Patrick Brice and Mark Duplass have found clever new ways to reinvigorate the found footage subgenre. Better than that, they’ve found ways to actually make such a medium seem practical in terms of the story.Spoilers follow.

Found Footage: A Crash Course!

Creep

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you force yourself to tolerate another person’s weird, uncomfortable behavior just to avoid seeming rude? Where someone keeps acting completely off-kilter, but you don’t want to draw attention to it, because that would break the social contract? That’s what Patrick Brice’s funny, unnerving Creep is like, stretched to a feature-length film.The brain-child of Brice and Mark Duplass, Creep takes an awkward situation and makes it even more awkward, to the point where the tone shifts from comedy to horror in a subtle yet jarring manner. As a society, many of us have adapted (or perhaps the correct word would be “devolved”) to being openly cruel and confrontational when we’re in the comfort of our own homes and hidden behind a computer screen, but it’s a different story entirely in person. Most people want to avoid confrontation. Creep asks, “What if someone who was truly disturbed exploited that to deadly effect?““Patrick had made this documentary short called Maurice about the owner of one of the last pornography theaters in Paris,” Duplass said, “and I noticed the way he was and what he got from this guy. So there was a trust, and it’s the nature of how Patrick is. He just loves people and he doesn’t judge them…And I saw that element and I was like, what if we take that element in you and created a more extreme character, someone who is just desperate for love and will really stick around and trust people too much?“In Creep, Brice plays Aaron, a videographer looking to make a quick buck. He answers a vague Craigslist ad and travels to a scenic yet very remote mountain cabin where he meets his client, the mysterious Josef (Duplass). Josef explains that he’s dying of cancer, and he wants Patrick to record a day in his life for his unborn son. Josef admits he got this idea from the Michael Keaton movie My Life, and while Aaron has no qualms with the job at first, Josef’s increasingly strange behavior starts to give him pause. The very first thing Josef asks Aaron to do is to film him taking a bath as he pantomimes giving his unborn baby a “tubby time.” Soon after, Josef introduces Aaron to the mask for a character he claims his father made up – a disturbing wolf named “Peachfuzz.” It only gets weirder from there.When Creep came out in 2014, found footage as a whole had become boring and unnecessary, especially in regards to horror. There was a pointlessness to it – why, we’d ask ourselves again and again, is this even being presented in this style? Yet Creep found clever new ways to make it all work. In one sequence, the camera is left running on a table, filming a wide shot of Aaron frantically searching for his missing keys that is very effective. Later, there are several clever transitions, as the camera is spun away from the action to reveal that it’s actually been filming another screen showing footage the entire time – found footage within found footage. Little tricks like this add a neat aesthetic to Creep.For most of it’s run time, the audience isn’t entirely sure where Creep is going. Duplass, as the unnerving Josef, uses his mumblecore roots to full effect; he has a remarkable ability to talk-out what he’s thinking and make it somehow sound both realistic and also subtly false. When Josef’s behavior escalates to levels that even the polite Aaron can’t ignore, we can almost believe Josef’s explanations because Duplass sells them so well. Rather than just a one-note weirdo, Duplass creates a layered character with Josef. Every time Josef does something weird, he’s quick to offer a seemingly genuine apology. It makes the character somehow endearing despite all his lunacy. All of this serves to make Creep’s ending, where Josef murders Aaron, all the more shocking. This sequence too makes remarkable use of the found footage angle, with Josef setting a camera up at a great distance, presenting us with a wide shot that lingers as Josef, wearing his Peachfuzz mask, creeps up on Aaron and axes him to death.The viewer can’t help but come away with a sense of shock. What seemed like an incredibly awkward comedy has just become something more terrifying, and the found footage aesthetic has lulled us into a sense of security in a way. Since this has been Aaron’s movie the whole time, we assume that he gets out of this okay. Yet the final moment of the film reveals that this isn’t Aaron’s movie. It’s Josef’s. We’ve been duped, and rather than inspiring anger, this twist is remarkably effective.

Creep 2

Keep Watching

What makes Creep 2 so creepy is the way it continues to find clever new ways to put the faux documentary angle to good use. In 2017, we as a society are even more obsessed with filming and recording ourselves than when the first film hit in 2014. We’ve become a society that lives through screens, always desperately trying to capture a moment with our own personal recording devices we have tucked away in our pockets. If we don’t Instagram, or SnapChat, or even just take a photo of a moment, can we even truly say it happened?We’ve been conditioned to act like this. To in a sense put on a show for our peers, desperately hoping someone, somewhere, finds a connection. This logic is hardwired into the Creep series, where the filmmakers should use common sense, turn the camera off, and get the hell out of there. But they don’t. Because they want that connection. They want to record it all, and hope that the recording will somehow serve as a landmark. A sign that for a moment in time, they existed.As the situation in Creep 2 becomes more and more dangerous, Sara grows more and more apprehensive. But she keeps filming. She has to. She needs that connection. She needs her work to mean something, and the only way it could mean anything is if someone notices. At the start of the film, after Aaron tells her he’s a serial killer, she confesses to her camera that she usually doesn’t do things like this, but maybe that’s the reason why no one is watching Encounters. She needs to take a risk, hoping it leads to a reward.Perhaps that’s the true brilliance of the Creep series. We as a society are forever doomed to be stuck searching for connection through documentation. Photos of the meals we eat plastered across Instagram. A sea of a million rectangular lights going up at concerts as the crowd forgets to watch the show and instead attempts to contain it. The Creep series, like the best found footage films, understands that as a society, we not only have to keep filming, we also have to keep watching. We’re a society of voyeurs looking for a fix. Like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window, we’re forever stuck gazing out at our neighbors, and in turn wondering if they’re gazing back at us. The Creep series understands that if you’ve ever had the funny feeling that you’re being watched, it’s probably because you are. How terrifying is that?