I’m a few years later to this one, but I didn’t realize the phenomenal little horror flick, 2014’s Creep, had a sequel!
The 2017 sequel, Creep 2 continues with the found footage element, but in a sort of different direction. For starters, the serial killer who calls himself Aaron (played by Mark Duplass), is explicit about it. He’s not shying away from it and there’s no mystery there. And better yet, he’s embroiled in a midlife crisis! That’s right, even serial killers can experience a midlife crisis.
Enter Sara (played by the game Dessiree Akhavan). She’s a videographer who started an unsuccessful and unnoticed series where she would film and interact with the weirdos of Craigslist.
When Aaron posts a wanted ad on Craigslist, Sara thinks this will be her chance to actually get noticed. When she comes to Aaron’s home, again, he’s explicit: I’m a serial killer and I want you to document the next 24 hours of my life.
Aaron compares himself to Francis Ford Coppola, where it’s like, okay, I made The Godfather and The Godfather Part II and The Conversation and Apocalypse Now, but now what? Aaron’s killed a number of people and he’s wondering, where’s the spark I once felt? I don’t feel alive anymore. Perhaps this documentary will help, he thinks.
Instead, it’s Sara who helps him feel alive again because one, she doesn’t believe Aaron is a serial killer; she thinks he’s another Craigslist eccentric. And secondly, whether because of that or because of her ingrained mettle anyhow, she’s not scared or intimidated by him or anything he says or suggests. That reignites his fire.
And that makes for an interesting dynamic, at times creepy, at other times hilarious and still other times, even scary, as these two engage with each other at Aaron’s home.
After a while, it seems like Aaron falls in love with Sara and thinks the ultimate way to end the documentary they’re ostensibly making is for Sara to kill him. She doesn’t want to. So, then he concocts the idea that they will Romeo and Juliet themselves. She doesn’t want to do that, either.
That’s when Aaron realizes he’s going to have to kill her and attempts to do so. In a freaking awesome shot by director Patrick Brice, Aaron is talking to the camera on the ground, rather morose about what he’s had to do, when we see a bloody and battered Sara climbing out of the grave with a shovel to attack Aaron from behind. She bashes his head in. I loved that whole sequence! (I also didn’t realize until now that Brice also directed another film I recently saw and reviewed, There’s Someone Inside Your House, which I thought showed a lot of style.)
Although in true classic serial killer horror movie fashion, we get a tease at the end that Aaron is still alive because Sara is later being filmed by someone whistling a tune that only Aaron knew.
I thought this was an effective 80 minutes of found footage psychological horror. The found footage gimmick made total sense here. Sara’s motivations and disbelief that Aaron’s a serial killer made sense. And Aaron, going through a midlife crisis as a serial killer is both hilarious and creepy a setup. Brilliant, really.
Akhaven also seems like someone I should have had on my radar sooner. Not only was she pitch perfect in this film, but is also apparently a great writer and director in her own right going by some of her other films I’ve looked at but haven’t seen yet.
Anyhow, if you liked the first Creep, you might actually like this one even more, as I did, and if you’ve never seen Creep, you should watch it, but it’s not necessary before watching Creep 2.
Milam's Musings 