She’s Running Out, She Runs, Runs, Runs, Runs *
I happened upon the horror film Creep tonight in my neighborhood video store’s new release section, and the DVD’s cover — a bloody hand pressed against the fogged window of a London subway car — was intriguing enough for me to give the film a shot. Once I arrived home, DVD in hand, I did a little research on IMDb before checking out the film. While it screened in some European festivals, it went straight to video here in the U.S. I don’t recall hearing anything about the film before today, but I am glad I ended up renting it.
The cast is headed by the always-competent Franka Potente (who was stunning in Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola Run and The Princess and The Warrior, and Todd Solondz’s Storytelling), who plays an extroverted businesswoman that, unfortunately, misses the last train of the night in London’s Underground, only to find herself trapped in a subterranean maze of horror. Potente — who I remember gave some pretty funny interviews back in the 1990s about how much she came to loathe running after Lola’s exhausting shoot — is once again on the run; this time, from a physically-deformed, underground-dwelling cannibal who captures and tortures passengers that cross his path.
The film’s visuals and thematic elements are somewhat derivative; director Christopher Smith borrows heavily from films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 28 Days Later, An American Werewolf in London, and Silence of the Lambs. In fact, one of Creep’s closing scenes, taking place on a dirty subway track and violently incorporating the third rail — is not dissimilar at all to the ending of Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (sidenote, I own a copy of Jason Takes Manhattan, unfortunately, but it’s carefully hidden behind my VHS copy of Uncle Buck on my bottom shelf, if that’s any indication of how bad a movie it is).
There are also some narrative inconsistencies in Creep — it struggles to strike a balance between slasher/gorefest and mature psychological thriller — but the film ultimately delivers some interesting commentary on class conflict in London: A few of the cannibal’s victims are ignored by tunnel security, who dismiss the sweaty, dirty victims as “crackheads” undeserving of assistance; additionally, the portrayal of Potente’s character in the opening and closing scenes raises some interesting questions concerning the plight of the lower class in London society. In fact, Creep’s visuals — dark, damp, and bleak — are disturbingly evocative of the footage in Marc Singer’s documentary Dark Days, which chronicles the lives of squatters in Manhattan’s subway tunnels. Lastly, without giving too much away about the film, litterateurs will enjoy the film’s multiple definitions of “creep,” which are alternately applied both thoughtfully and cheekily to describe both attacker and victim in the film.
The DVD offers a plethora of fun special features, including alternate openings and endings, interviews with Smith and Potente, and a featurette on making the “creep.” While Creep is not the scariest film, or the tidiest, part of the fun of the genre is using your imagination to fill in plot holes, and for this reason I recommend it for your viewing.
* The Radiohead lyrics are too fitting. Word.