Mark Duplass is a funny guy.
You many know him as Brendan Deslaurier, the mega-sensitive male midwife from The Mindy Project, or as Pete Eckhart, a member of The League, a raunchy dude sit-com that ran for six years on FX network.
Creep is also funny, but in a really uncomfortable way. It’s a found-footage duet with director Patrick Brice, in which Duplass is Josef, a terminally ill man spending a day with hired videographer Aaron (Brice), on hand to document Josef’s farewell statements to his unborn son, Buddy.
From the moment Aaron accepts the job, driving way out hell and gone to a remote cabin in the woods, things just get gradually weirder and darker. Josef is revealed to be a master of passive/aggressive tactics, finding every opportunity to frighten Aaron, and then quickly apologize for his increasingly bizarre behavior.
Push and pull back. Push and pull back. It becomes a dance between the two men, as Josef’s tells Aaron disturbing stories about his life and wife, as they wander through the woods, eat pancakes at a diner, and return to Josef’s cabin.
Aaron, the consummate professional, is rattled by Josef’s manner that oscillates between pledges of warm friendship and frozen moments of cold confession that should be setting off screaming alarm bells.
After having spent the day with Josef, he’s in a hurry to get home and work on the footage—or more likely to escape from his somewhat menacing host.
Sadly, like Chris Washington in Get Out, Aaron can’t find his car keys.
Josef is many things, chief among them a manipulative predator, but he is also a troubled artist exploring his (romantic?) feelings for Aaron—and indeed the rest of humanity—by making his own films about the people he meets, that he keeps stored like treasured mementos.
Or lost lover letters. And he definitely has a type.
I will endeavor to find out more in Creep 2 and The Creep Tapes on AMC. Apparently, Josef’s been a busy boy, making all sorts of new friends.
horrificflicks.com 