Creep
Theatrical release poster
Directed byChristopher Smith
Screenplay byChristopher Smith
Produced by
  • Julie Baines
  • Jason Newmark[1]
Starring
CinematographyDanny Cohen
Edited byKate Evans
Music byThe Insects
Production
companies
  • Dan Films
  • Zero West[1]
Distributed by
  • Pathé (United Kingdom)
  • X Verleih AG (Germany)[1]
Release dates
  • 10 August 2004 (2004-08-10) (Frankfurt Fantasy Filmfest)
  • 28 January 2005 (2005-01-28) (United Kingdom)
  • 10 March 2005 (2005-03-10) (Germany)
Running time
85 minutes[2]
Countries
  • United Kingdom
  • Germany[1]
LanguageEnglish
Box office£1.7 million

Creep is a 2004 horror film written and directed by Christopher Smith. The film follows a woman locked in the London Underground overnight. She later finds herself being stalked by a hideously deformed killer living in the sewers below. The film was first shown at the Frankfurt Fantasy Film festival in Germany on 10 August 2004.

Plot

Arthur and George are London sewage workers who discover a tunnel in one of the walls. Arthur starts exploring the tunnel alone, while newbie George stays behind. After a while, George enters and discovers Arthur, injured and in shock. A similarly injured woman jumps out, crying for help, only to be pulled back into the darkness.

A young German woman, Kate, decides to join her friend at a party and heads to Charing Cross Underground station but falls asleep on the platform while waiting for the train. When she awakens, she is alone, and the entire station has been locked up for the night. An empty train arrives, and she boards it; it abruptly stops and the lights go dark. She meets Guy, a coworker who follows her and whose awkward advances she repeatedly rejects. Guy attempts to rape her, only to be stopped by an unseen aggressor who drags him out of the train. Guy briefly reemerges, covered in blood, warning Kate to run.

Kate flees and runs into a homeless Scottish couple living in a storeroom, Jimmy and Mandy, and their dog Ray. Jimmy reluctantly agrees to help her by taking her to the night guard after she pays him. They find Guy, horribly maimed but still alive. Mandy, left alone, is attacked and kidnapped, triggering Jimmy's sorrow-fueled escape into a heroin-induced stupor. Kate manages to communicate with the security guard through intercom, but the man gets killed before being able to call for help. Kate and Jimmy decide to walk through the tunnel to the next station. A train stops near them; Jimmy decides to face the killer to avenge Mandy, but he is slaughtered as well.

Fleeing, Kate falls into the sewer system below, where she finds Arthur's body. She also finds a storage facility with hundreds of boxes, where she is captured by the killer, the titular "creep"—a hideously deformed, mentally ill hermit named Craig, who keeps his victims in semi-submerged, rat-infested cages until they are dead, after which he eats them. Kate is put in one of these cages, along with George. They escape and end up in an abandoned medical facility (looking like an illegal abortion clinic with a series of fetuses lined up along a wall), where they find an unconscious Mandy strapped to a surgical chair. Thinking she is dead, they move on. Craig appears, puts on a surgical gown, and mimics the gestures of a surgeon in front of a terrorized Mandy before he disembowels her with a bone saw, mimicking an abortion procedure.

Kate and George find the disused railcar where Craig lives. The dog, Ray, is there, along with old pictures of a medical doctor with a deformed child. Craig ambushes them and kills George. In a last, desperate effort, Kate sinks a hook and chain into Craig's throat, then has a running train rip it apart, and Craig bleeds to death. Disheveled, she returns to the initial station, by which point it is morning. She collapses on the platform, and Ray curls onto her lap. Mistaking her for a beggar, a man waiting for the train leaves her a coin, and Kate breaks into hysterical giggles and tears.

Cast

Production

The storyline has been compared to the 1972 film Death Line, also set on the London Underground and featuring a cannibalistic killer. Director Smith, who had not seen Death Line, attributes his inspiration to a scene in An American Werewolf in London set in the London Underground.[3]

The Last Tube

'Creep: The Last Tube' is a 2005 online 3D Shockwave horror game made to promote the film and was produced by Jail Dog.[4] Nearly 14 years after the game went down, the website known as The Lost Media Wiki conducted a search for the game.[5]

Beau Chesluk, a developer for the game, was eventually contacted, and after some searching he was able to locate the game files and send them to The Cracks Overhead. The game has since been uploaded to Archive.org.[6]

Reception

Critical response

Creep has received generally mixed reviews from critics. It currently holds a 40% 'rotten' rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on 15 reviews, and an average rating of 4.3/10.[7]

Time Out gave the film a negative review, writing, "this London Underground-set slasher squanders a promising premise for trashy shocks, old-school nastiness and a fistful of genre clichés."[8]

All Movie's review was favorable, writing, "this pared-down shocker might be light on plot, but it's packed with creepy frights and psychopathic attitude from its mean main monster."[9]

Matthew Turner View London said "The performances are good, particularly Potente, who avoids scream queen clichés by making her character surprisingly unlikeable - Kate is rude and arrogant in her early scenes and the fact that she's German is, of course, a coincidence."[10]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Creep". Filmportal.de. Retrieved 9 March 2016.
  2. ↑ "CREEP (18)". British Board of Film Classification. 12 August 2004. Retrieved 12 July 2015.
  3. ↑ Hennigan, Adrian (February 2005). "BBC – Movies – interview – Chris Smith". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 12 August 2012.
  4. ↑ "Creep - The Last Tube (found 3D Shockwave horror game; 2005-2007) - The Lost Media Wiki". lostmediawiki.com. Retrieved 14 December 2021.
  5. ↑ "Creep - The Last Tube (found 3D Shockwave horror game; 2005-2007) - The Lost Media Wiki". lostmediawiki.com. Retrieved 14 December 2021.
  6. ↑ JailDog (2005), Creep - The Last Tube, retrieved 14 December 2021
  7. ↑ "Creep". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 12 August 2012.
  8. ↑ "[Creep review]". Time Out London (1797). 26 January 2005. Retrieved 12 August 2012.
  9. ↑ Buchanan, Jason. "Creep (2004) – Trailers, Reviews, Synopsis, Showtimes and Cast – AllMovie". AllMovie. Retrieved 12 August 2012.
  10. ↑ Turner, Matthew (25 January 2005). "Creep". ViewLondon. Retrieved 31 October 2018.
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