Pre-Halloween Horror-watching #4: Creep
Creep
Genre: Urban Monster in the Dark
Director: Christopher Smith (who went on to direct the well-received Triangle and Black Death), 2004
Starring: Franka Potente and some British people
TL:DR: A little uneven, but overall a decent use of of the "beast in the underground" concept (helped by it actually being the London Underground)
I love that the idea of the urban-unknown-as-horror has made a major entry into horror movies in the last decade or so. Not that I have anything against the good old hillbilly horror stuff, but it's about time we stopped being scared of incestuous mutant rednecks and started being scared of mutant things that live underneath the subways while living as horrific of daily human life.
Franka Potente does a really great job as random German party girl living in London who gets trapped in terrifying circumstance beyond her control. While Black Death is much smoother as a plotted experience, the Underground scenes are truly quite creepy in Creep, made much more interesting that the movie moves back and forth between the squalid, darkness-filled tunnels and otherwise well-lit, but extremely claustrophobic train stations and train cars.
What characters there are is truly unimportant (and in fact, the slowest part of the film is when one of them gives a long monologue about himself, his life, his circumstanzzzzzzzz), all that really matters is that they are trapped with a horrible thing hunting them. Normally, I really dislike it when films reveal the monster too early and keep it center-framed, but in this particular case, ever additional frame adds another level of horror as more and more is revealed about its behavior, origins, and savagery (there is a later scene involving an operating room that is really not for the faint of heart).
Anyone notice that the films I've liked out of these batches so far are all European?
Next one coming in probably a couple days, as I will be busy, but I hope folks are enjoying them.
Genre: Urban Monster in the Dark
Director: Christopher Smith (who went on to direct the well-received Triangle and Black Death), 2004
Starring: Franka Potente and some British people
TL:DR: A little uneven, but overall a decent use of of the "beast in the underground" concept (helped by it actually being the London Underground)
I love that the idea of the urban-unknown-as-horror has made a major entry into horror movies in the last decade or so. Not that I have anything against the good old hillbilly horror stuff, but it's about time we stopped being scared of incestuous mutant rednecks and started being scared of mutant things that live underneath the subways while living as horrific of daily human life.
Franka Potente does a really great job as random German party girl living in London who gets trapped in terrifying circumstance beyond her control. While Black Death is much smoother as a plotted experience, the Underground scenes are truly quite creepy in Creep, made much more interesting that the movie moves back and forth between the squalid, darkness-filled tunnels and otherwise well-lit, but extremely claustrophobic train stations and train cars.
What characters there are is truly unimportant (and in fact, the slowest part of the film is when one of them gives a long monologue about himself, his life, his circumstanzzzzzzzz), all that really matters is that they are trapped with a horrible thing hunting them. Normally, I really dislike it when films reveal the monster too early and keep it center-framed, but in this particular case, ever additional frame adds another level of horror as more and more is revealed about its behavior, origins, and savagery (there is a later scene involving an operating room that is really not for the faint of heart).
Anyone notice that the films I've liked out of these batches so far are all European?
Next one coming in probably a couple days, as I will be busy, but I hope folks are enjoying them.