No chase, no music, just “whack” from a distance: the first Creep (2014) stands out as shockingly brutal for its unadorned violence.

This spare approach is indicative of Creep’s stripped down, dialogue-driven style, for which handheld POV (not sure this is “found footage” vs. a perverse murder journal) was the perfect medium. It turns out to be a kind of soup stock for experimentation, which we see in Creep 2 (2017) and now in 2024’s Creep Tapes series.

What is Creep about?

In Creep, a reclusive eccentric (Mark Duplass, co-writer with Patrick Brice) hires an amateur videographer to document his life, fictionalizing a distinctly modern terror: Craigslist murders.

Creep 2 builds on what worked while taking a new direction

Creep 2 takes the concept in a fresh and unexpected direction. Here, Duplass lures a YouTube influencer, Sara, (Desiree Akhavan), despondent over her lack of success, into an easy gig, filming his video audition for an acting school.

After toying with her psychologically, wrenching her in and out of a sense of safety and trust as he does in the first film, he’s straight with her: he’s a serial killer who wants her to document his life’s work.

Sara’s hopelessness, which makes her willing to take this kind of risk in the first place, becomes a kind of strength. Here’s someone with nothing to lose. The two develop a likely/unlikely relationship that goes in a horrifying and unexpected direction.

Creep 2 set the stage for the Creep Tapes series

Getting inventive with Creep 2 was a jumping off point for a whole Creep Universe.

In final acts of cruelty, Duplass’s nameless killer tricks his victims into taping their own demise and death, leaving him with simultaneously virtual and physical video tape trophies of his kills. Each episode of the Creep Tapes features one of these.

Having the stories be different enough (e.g., the second episode goes as far as parachuting) to sustain a series shows how clever Duplass and Patrick Brice are in continuing to innovate off of this simple concept.

Creep 2 review

I’ll be honest; there were a few moments in both of the Creep films where I thought, if this goes any further, I’m going to have to take a break. Duplass’s killer is verbose, narcissistic, and manipulative—this is part of his web—and like a good predator, this is him fucking with you.

Duplass brings his performance to the bare edge of being almost cloying and stops there. This allows his performance to remain a performance. He is supposed to be exhausting and you get that.

I’ll be watching the rest of the Creep Tapes, but I may need to space them out for that same reason. His narcissism is sometimes just a little rich for my blood.