Horror Hidden Gem: This Found Footage Film Centers on a Dying Man’s Video Diary to His Unborn Child

(SPOT.ph) When it comes to horror titles that make your skin crawl, what immediately comes to mind are The Exorcist and its possession body horror; The Conjuring 2 and its use of the actual recording of the Enfield Poltergeist; and of course, Ringu and its infamous Sadako TV scene, to name just a few of the many terrifying scenes that randomly pop into our head late at night. It’s clearly one thing for a horror movie to make such a mark on our subconscious, but what if we told you there’s a film centered around just two guys talking that could leave an equally devastating impact.

Enter: the black comedy-slash-found footage horror film Creep on Netflix. In the movie, a videographer named Aaron (portrayed by the film’s director Patrick Brice) heads deep into the woods to meet Josef (Mark Duplass), a stranger who commissioned him to help make a video diary to be played by his future child. You see, Josef has an inoperable brain tumor and a pregnant wife who’s no longer in the picture. Surely nothing unusual will happen.

Also read: Horror Hidden Gem: Pregnant Woman Is Haunted by Her Parasitic Twin Brother in This Streaming Title

Here’s why you should watch the Creep movie this Halloween season:

Clocking in at a lean (and mean) 1 hour and 17 minutes, Creep provides just the right amount of unsettling tension between the two characters, precisely because it wasn’t even intended to be a horror film. 

Creep’s creators originally intended for the film to be a simple dark comedy focused on one socially awkward individual, but when shopping the film around to producers, Blumhouse head Jason Blum told them to make it a horror movie. (Audiences Everywhere) Thus, the addition of  infuriatingly clever jump scares and deadly serious tension, ultimately elevating the film to a quality more than the sum of its genres.

You’ll find yourself engrossed by what remains the core of the film: the curious and uneasy relationship between Josef and Aaron. Duplass portrays Josef with the immediately noticeable creepy—it’s in the title, after all—and seemingly unhinged nature, but where he shines proves to be in the more sympathetic glimpses he gives us into the character. You’ll be surprised; you’ll end up not immediately dismissing what stories Josef spins—even though he’s clearly lying at points—and ultimately just thinking about how sad and lonely he is, despite the heinous acts he’s caught on camera doing.

It’s a uniquely terrifying horror film, as its frights don’t stem from blood or the supernatural, but rather, weird looks, crooked smiles, strange choice of words, and just general social ineptitude. One early scene centers on the wholesome premise of Josef filming a “bath tub time” video for his unborn child, but the whole scene just reeks of serial killer vibes, even if there’s nothing to suggest that other than Josef just—justifiably—being awkward in front of the camera. This becomes even more evident in a later scee, where Josef plays a pretty harmless prank on Aaron, yet it somehow comes off as something like the first kill scene in a Friday the 13th movie.

If anything, the film is an interesting experiment in human behavior. Is there honesty to be found in a persona that’s completely fabricated? And where does one draw the line between sympathy and cynicism? Just a couple questions Creep brushes up against in its deceptively simple story. It’s an underrated gem in the horror genre for how it centralizes on its wicked humor—and dare we say it could’ve gone even nastier with its trickery.

Creep is streaming on Netflix.

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