Creep (2004)

Media Reviewed: UK DVD (Pathe)

Director: Christopher Smith
Starring: Franka Potente, Vas Blackwood, Ken Campbell, Jeremy Sheffield


The tube can be a pretty horrific place; it's hot and stuffy, sometimes smells funny, usually crowded and at night when it's not so crowded it can be a fairly eerie place. Therefore it's presumably a good place to set a horror movie, right? Writer and director Christopher Smith says "Yes" in his film Creep, but does film use its location to fully realise its potential?

Creep opens at some kind of artsy gathering in London, populated by your typical rich, arrogant social climbers. We're introduced to the main character, Kate (Franka Potente), who is no exception in her social surroundings. She's a smug bitch, and written this way, but will she be so smug when she finds out what's in store for her this evening?

On her way to meet a friend at some kind of event involving George Clooney, she goes to the tube station. She has trouble with the ticket machine, so pays a homeless girl £20 for a travel card initially offered to her for £1.50 (her dubious sense of value is highlighted when she later pays another homeless person £50 for him to help her to safety). She waits on the platform for the last train but she's slightly pissed-up and she falls asleep. She's gone and missed her train, hasn't she? Quite how she slept through the roar of a tube train arriving at a station I don't know, but she's missed the train regardless. It turns out that the station has been closed and she's locked in (why she wasn't noticed on the security cameras is one of many unanswered questions in this film).

A train pulls up at the station and she boards it (why did it stop and open its doors if the train services have ended?). The train pulls away, but stops suddenly and she is plunged into darkness. The rest of the film involves her trying to escape from the London Underground with the aid of a tramp, whilst being stalked by some kind of creature that is generally killing people and causing all sorts of mischief.

The 'Creep', i.e. the film's assailant, turns out to be a weedy, half naked Jason Voorhees type character. Despite his puny exterior and a dodgy looking spine he is in fact quite strong, able to lift a fully grown man up by his head, whilst slicing his face. He's more funny than scary - especially when he makes a bizarre screeching noise. When we find out that his name is Craig, well, that makes him even less intimidating.

It's unexplained as to what Craig actually is, or what his back-story is, but I can only assume by the odd visual clue in the film is that he's some kind of medical experiment gone wrong. The fact that he manages to roam around and survive in the tube tunnels whilst going unnoticed adds to a level of silliness and bizarre logic that permeates the entire film. It is very thin on plot, which can be forgiven in a horror movie, but there little else going on in the film of much interest. It's not particularly visually effective and there aren't any real standout moments or shocking imagery.

The only intelligent moment of the film comes right at the end, when Kate, having survived her ordeal, ends up looking like the homeless people she treats so arrogantly at the start of the film, with her clothes looking ragged and torn and a dog resting on her lap. She's reduced to what she found so disgusting to begin with.

Apart from that, Creep is pretty much standard stalk and slash fare. It doesn't use the eeriness of a deserted tube station to its fullest and the plot holes leave the film with very little substance.