“I’m what they call a ‘serial killer.'”
Creep 2 had a tough task in front of it. It couldn’t be a rehash of the first film, because then it would lose the slow-burn dread that came with the revelation that a cameraman was trapped with a serial killer. So for the followup, director Patrick Brice (who co-wrote with star Mark Duplass) flipped the concept on its head. This time, Aaron (as Duplass’s character is now calling himself) is up front about the fact that he’s a murderer, one who has lost his mojo. As Creep 2 unfolds, we realize that it is, more than anything, a movie not only about midlife crises, but about artistic reinvention. In that way, it’s a meta-textual look at how the film itself was made.
This is all made clear in the film’s great cold open. We meet Dave (Karan Soni, best known for Deadpool) at the tail end of Aaron’s process of stalking and murder. Aaron exhorts Dave to go to the police, he says he’s worried about their friendship, but his heart doesn’t seem in it. When Aaron slashes Dave’s throat, he does so almost perfunctorily. It’s here that Duplass and Brice set the tone for the film; a little more playful, a little more meta, now that the audience is in on the joke. There’s a hidden camera in Dave’s living room, and Aaron winks into it a few times. The audience is made both complicit and engaged.
Enter Sara. She’s a YouTuber, but not one of the insufferable ones. She hosts a little-seen show called Encounters, in which she meets with people posting some of the strangest requests on CraigsList. Just like in the first film, someone is offering $1000 for a day’s work. Sara can’t help but be intrigued, as any of us would be. As played by Desiree Akhavan, Sara doesn’t come off as naive or anything that would preclude red flags being raised by an offer like this. In other words, we don’t spend our time yelling at the screen. Sara is smart and funny, and most importantly, she doesn’t back down from Aaron.
Things get weird quickly, as one would expect from this film. Aaron cops to being a serial killer, which doesn’t seem to faze his guest. He needs to up the ante. He leaves and comes back in just a towel. He says they need to see each other naked in order to establish trust. Again, Sara doesn’t blink. She lets him strip, then does the same. “We good?” she asks. Aaron is handling the camera at this point, but he’s not focused on her breasts. He’s focused on her face, fascinated by her. Creep 2 is as much of a character study of Sara as it is of Aaron – at least we know her real name.
Creep 2 never feels aimless. Which is impressive, considering most of it was improvised. But Duplass and Akhavan are so comfortable in their characters that we feel the reality of them: a man who is used to his reality scaring people away, and a woman unafraid of anyone’s reality. It’s a strangely funny film, but also more heartfelt than the first. When Aaron has retreated, depressed, to his jacuzzi, Sara gets him to open up about his past. He reveals that he was kidnapped at 15 and taken to the woods, where he was made to dig his own grave. He wound up killing his kidnapper, and in doing so believes he discovered his purpose in life. We’re led to believe that his obsession with killing (he’s claimed 39 victims) has taken over his life, to the point that not only is he a virgin, but he’s never been kissed.
But is any of that true? The strange thing about the Creep films is that we want to know the truth, but the films are so much more effective existing as they do in a state of ambiguity. However much or little of Aaron’s story is true is immaterial. It’s true in that moment, and it’s the closest Creep 2 gets to outright pathos. The film never sympathizes with Aaron, but it doesn’t go out of its way to villify him either. We believe his sadness. At their core, the Creep films are about the need to understand each other as human beings. They just take an extreme approach to it.
Creep 2 sets itself up for a sequel, but also makes you question the necessity of one. As said above, these films work best when they’re ambiguous. And given that both Sara and Aaron are alive at the end of the film, would the series benefit from that bit of connective tissue? It’s hard to say. But everyone here clearly knows what they’re doing. Luckily, they play things pretty close to the vest.
10/1: Hellraiser / The Invitation
10/2: Splice / Banshee Chapter
10/3: Jennifer’s Body / Raw
10/4: Dominion: Prequel to The Exorcist / Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2
10/5: Kill List / A Field in England
10/6: Halloween II / Halloween III: Season of the Witch
10/7: A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge / A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
10/8: Ginger Snaps / Creep
10/9: Cube / Creep 2
10/10: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) / The Ritual
10/11: Hell House LLC / The Taking of Deborah Logan
10/12: Re-Animator / From Beyond
10/13: Beetlejuice / Sleepy Hollow
10/14: Idle Hands / The Lords of Salem
10/15: The Ring / Noroi: The Curse
10/16: I Know What You Did Last Summer / The Monster
10/17: Night of the Living Dead / Train to Busan
10/18: The Devil’s Backbone / Southbound
10/19: Event Horizon / Dreamcatcher
10/20: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari / The Bad Seed
10/21: Eyes Without a Face / Goodnight Mommy
10/22: The Strangers / The Strangers: Prey at Night
10/23: In the Mouth of Madness / The Void
10/24: The Amityville Horror / Honeymoon
10/25: Gerald’s Game / Emelie
10/26: The Monster Squad / Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
10/27: Veronica / Jacob’s Ladder
10/28: High Tension / You’re Next
10/29: The Innkeepers / Bug
10/30: The People Under the Stairs / Vampires
10/31: Saw / Saw II
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