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Jun 23, 2015 By Stephen Danay Web Exclusive

Looking to make some quick cash, videographer Aaron answers a Craigslist ad that directs him to a remote house in the mountains. There, he meets Josef, an aggressively friendly cancer patient who wants Aaron to make a movie about him for his unborn son. As the day goes on and Josef becomes increasingly honest, Aaron begins to suspect that his life may be in danger.

Although Creep is not the first mumblecore horror film–see 2012’s excellent Resolution and Joe Swanberg’s less excellent The Sacrament–it might be the most indebted to the mumblecore aesthetic. Featuring only two speaking parts–director Patrick Brice as Aaron and mumblecore godfather and The League star Mark Duplass as Josef–as well as limited sets and a mostly improvised script, the first half of Creep plays more like an extremely off-putting comedy than a horror movie. As Josef, Duplass plays a Stepford version of his usual everyman persona. Some of the creepiest moments in the film are his long, unbroken stares into the camera, as though he’s going to climb through the screen and awkwardly touch the viewer. As a director, Brice makes the most of the meandering conversations between himself and Duplass, combining the banality of an awkward new friendship with bizarre sexual undertones as Josef peels back his own increasingly disturbing layers.

Despite an interesting performance from Duplass and a fun twist at the halfway point, Creep never truly coheres as a narrative. Even at a scant seventy-seven minutes, the film feels stretched and the lengthy build-up pays off in a sick joke rather than any kind of actual climax. Creep is interesting as a disturbing character sketch, but any jaded horror fans will likely scoff at its inclusion in the genre.

[Creep is now available through iTunes, and will debut on Netflix on July 14th.]

Author rating: 5.5/10