|
 reep" comes along
at a time when the British horror industry is experiencing a resurgence of
sorts, with recent years bringing forth films such as "28
Days Later" and "Dead
Man's Shoes". In this context, director Christopher Smith's debut
film can be seen as more of a traditional genre throwback, and as such has
little in common with the more revisionist works mentioned. Despite a few
modern trappings, the film is very much an old fashioned scare show that
mixes elements of the slasher and creature feature subgenres along with a
premise lifted from the 1972 chiller "Raw Meat" (a.k.a.
"Deathline"). The two films are suspiciously similar in a number
of ways, and both are based around the bloody exploits of a deformed
cannibal killer who skulks in the shadowy recesses of the London underground
transport system.
With
"Creep", Smith at least attempts to update the original film, if
not in terms of plotting then through a nice attention to detail regarding
the setting, which adds a sense of realism to the more clichéd aspects of
the scenario. The writer/director also wisely decides to sidestep the tired
irony and dull teen casting which have been inflicted upon the genre of
late, and as a result, "Creep" is generally quite successful, and
whilst not pushing the envelope in the least, it certainly delivers the
goods, both in terms of grimy shocks and plentiful gore.
The
plot follows an unfortunate night in the life of Kate (Franka Potente
"The
Borne Identity"), a somewhat unlikeable German party girl who
falls asleep one night on a London underground platform, and awakes to
find herself alone and trapped. As she searches for a way back to the
surface, she and a variety of other characters fall foul of the titular
creep, a flesh hungry mutant that seems to have been the result of some
unexplained experiment, and now roams the tunnels, snatching people either
to eat them, or for an even more unpleasant purpose.
Smith
seems only too aware that the film features an unambitious, unoriginal
narrative, and attempts to draw attention away from this fact by throwing
in a good amount of atmosphere and action. He does this quite
successfully, and whilst he perhaps goes a little too far in his portrayal
of the labyrinth of gothic tunnels and abandoned facilities beneath London
in order to make the film fully plausible, this at least gives the
proceedings an interesting, evocative setting ripe for terror. In fact,
the whole premise of the plot is shaky at best, as it seems rather
unlikely that the ghoul could manage to rack up so many victims without
drawing attention to himself, or being discovered in his poorly hidden
lair.
But
Smith can be forgiven these lapses, as no matter how unbelievable,
"Creep" is a very atmospheric film, both in its early depiction
of instantly recognisable London life, and its latter scenes of dark,
oppressive tunnels that seem to have been influenced by the "Resident
Evil" series of videogames. There are a good number of genuine
scares, and the whole film has a claustrophobic feel which the director
exploits to the full with uncomfortable moments, often involving the
legions of rats which the creep seems to command. Similarly, in terms of
blood, the film will certainly satisfy fans, with a good amount of
splatter, and a couple of genuinely foul scenes that are sure to raise a
shudder.
Revealed
around halfway through the film, the monster itself is good value for the
money spent, coming across as the sadistic, crack addict brother of Gollum
from "Lord
of the Rings". Although Smith is annoyingly vague about his
creature's origins, the cannibal nevertheless manages to deal out enough
bloody carnage to be one of the more memorable genre creations of the last
few years. As much as anything, it is quite gratifying to watch a film
which relies on good old fashioned latex and gore makeup as opposed to the
lazy CGI creatures which are sadly becoming more and more predominant in
the genre.
As
well as being decidedly pedestrian in terms of plotting, the film does
have a number of flaws, mainly in the fact that its central female lead is
an arrogant character for which the viewer cares little. Although
Potente's acting is competent enough, she is sadly saddled with lazy
writing that reduces her survival efforts to little more than running,
screaming, and falling over at inopportune moments. In addition to this,
the rest of the cast seem only to have been written in to provide
potential corpses, as though they had 'kill me' stamped on their foreheads
in big red letters.
At
the end of the day, these are fairly minor criticisms, and indeed ones
which can sadly be levelled at the majority of films in the genre. Taking
this into account, "Creep" is certainly an above average effort,
and whilst not particularly outstanding, it provides solid entertainment
with enough scares and blood to make it appeal to fans of the form.
|
