FILM CHALLENGE: 27) Creep

27) Creep

Director: Christopher Smith

Year: 2004

Plot Summary: Heading home late one night after a party, Kate falls asleep while waiting for her train. She awakens to find herself trapped in the London underground, with all the doors locked for the evening. This begins a terrifying ordeal, as she is stalked through the dark tunnels by something dangerous with payback on its mind.

There's not a lot that is really thought-provoking about this ridiculous film, however, one thing that I did ask myself while I was watching this was: "Do people in horror films not watch horror films?"

Kate mentions the actor George Clooney early on in the film so it's safe to assume that she doesn't live in some parallel universe where movies don't exist, so how come she is so ignorant throughout the events of Creep? I'm not a violent person by any means, but if I had the upper hand in a fight against a man who earlier put me in a cage and killed my co-worker, I'd at least break his legs so that he couldn't pursue me. After all, I've seen The Shining enough times to know that murderous people generally try and murder you. But Kate simply runs away!

The only answer that I could find to that question I asked earlier is this: The writers probably never even considered the issue. In fact, it grows more and more apparent as the film goes on that they are oblivious to the fact that Kate's actions are so stupid and are more concerned about finding ways to move the plot along. For example, when she finds herself trapped in the aforementioned underwater cage - a place that we are lead to believe many people have suffered in - she escapes by, would you believe it, swimming UNDER the bars! Calm down, Sherlock Holmes. No-one would have thought of that! But she needed a way to escape because that is part of the plot and the writers clearly weren't smart enough to think of anything more clever.

This is where Creep's huge problem lies: It takes the audience for idiots. The characters don't do anything that normal people would do in situations like that; they only do things that add to the tension, the story or the twists. This, therefore, makes them utterly unlikeable. They act in such ignorant and preposterous ways that by about 10 minutes into the film you just want the monster to throw them all under the train tracks to show her them dumb they are.

It's such a shame because I enjoy good claustrophobic horror movies and this could have been one of them. But it's let down by such terrible writing that seems like something you'd find at a beginners screenwriting class and a central character who - as decent as her performance is - is totally loathsome.

Plus, the monster is supposed to be pure evil, but I kind of sympathise with him. After all, the poor bloke has been stuck in the London Underground for years. That's enough the drive anyone mental.

1/5

By Daniel Sarath with 2 comments