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Review by: Jack Foley | Rating:
One
DVD SPECIAL FEATURES: Directors Commentary; Making Of
Featurette; Production Design Featurette; Make Up Design Featurette;
Directors Video Diary; Frightfest Q&A; Original Ending With
Storyboard; Operation Gore Scene; Alternate Titles; Trailer; TV
Spots.
THERE'S an odour of bad taste from the opening moments of Creep,
as two men discuss excrement while searching the sewerage system
of subteranean London.
And things quickly get worse in this supposedly 'modern tale
of nightmare terror that exposes the extremes of raw survival'.
Written and directed by Christopher Smith, in association with
the UK Film Council's Premiere Fund and Germany's Filmstiftung
Nordrhein-Westfalen, Creep is a low-rent shocker that is nothing
more than a thoroughly nasty piece of work.
It probably draws its inspiration from the likes of the Texas
Chainsaw Massacre, but takes a perverse delight in lingering
around its extremes, thereby rendering it an objectionable piece
of work.
Franka Potente (of Bourne
Supremcy fame) plays Kate, an ambitious model agency booker,
who decides to leave a fashion industry event to head to another
party, at which George Clooney is rumoured to be present.
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Unable to find a taxi, she heads
to the Underground, but falls asleep on the platform and awakens
to find herself all alone.
Locked in and desperate to escape, she reluctantly gets on a
mystery train that pulls into the platform, only to find herself
panicking even more when the vessel pulls to a halt and her carriage
is plunged into darkness.
For no sooner has the train stopped, then it quickly becomes
apparent that Kate is not alone and that something is lurking
in the shadows waiting to pounce.
Far from being scary or jumpy, however, Creep is the sort of
film that begins badly and just keeps getting worse, so much so
that nothing about it makes any sense.
Quite why Kate would be left alone to sleep on the platform is
left unexplained, while the sudden appearance of her lecherous
co-worker, Guy (Jeremy Sheffield), seems like nothing more than
a thinly veiled excuse for an attempted rape scene.
And as the contrivances begin to pile up, the film becomes increasingly
more sickening, as Smith attempts to cover over the plot cracks
with shock tactics and gore.
The fate of one female victim, in a hidden laboratory, is particularly
gruesome (and, quite frankly, exploitative), while the drawn-out
finale smacks of desperation.
By the time the film has reached its ludicrous conclusion you'll
feel as drained and as grimy as a real day spent on the Underground
at the height of the Summer season.
But then as its name implies, viewers should leave this Creep
alone.
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