CREDIT: THE ORCHARD
Of all the horror films of 2015, Creep may have slipped under your nose undetected.

For horror movie fans, 2015 was an impressive year of surprise successes with titles including The Babadook and It Follows. Even M. Night Shyamalan managed to blow audiences away with the unanticipated triumph that was The Visit. Indeed, the past year was marked by a string of quietly great horror films that we never saw coming. It therefore makes sense that one of the best horror films of the year barely registered on our collective radar.

Directed by indie filmmaker Patrick Brice, Creep tells the insane little tale of Aaron (played by Brice), a broke videographer so desperate for work that he answers a sketchily drawn-up advertisement on Craigslist for a privately funded gig. When he arrives at the appointed job location, he meets Josef (Mark Duplass), a seemingly normal man who claims he needs to create film footage of himself for the benefit of his unborn son. Josef, you see, is dying of brain cancer, which at the beginning accounts for his eccentric, ‘zest for life’ behaviour and apparent forgetfulness.

However, as a day of innocently strange events transitions into a night of uncomfortable conversation and confessions, it becomes all too clear to Aaron that something about Josef goes beyond amiss to downright, well, creepy. From hiding Aaron’s car keys to prancing around his house in a wolf mask, Josef is the stuff of pure nightmare Craigslist ads, but for Aaron, that nightmare is nowhere near over.

The found footage format has bestowed the horror genre with an entirely new platform on which to deliver its stories. Some directors are only able to extend the medium as far as mere gimmickry, but others know that the magic of found footage lies within the rich opportunity for audience interaction. Brice is one such director.

Audiences are able to see, from his own perspective, how Aaron clumsily maneuvers his way through the psychological maze in which Josef entraps him, and how easily he falls for Josef’s horrifyingly transparent manipulations. With every misstep and hesitation, viewers are yanked along for the ride, screaming warnings at the screen in the same spirit as one would a seventies’ slasher flick.

Even in spite of the fact that we know what’s coming long before Aaron does, the overall execution of the film is far from predictable. With little gore and a slow burning pace, the hand-held camera is used as a clever device to create unprecedented twists and turns that at once confuse and illuminate. There is even a point where, like Aaron, we find ourselves doubting Josef’s motivations: is he truly a killer, or simply a lonely man, isolated by his mental health issues, making a last ditch effort to find a friend?

From its performances to its simple structure, all the elements of Creep align to make it a suspenseful, disturbing trip of a movie that finely alternates between showing and telling, yet never doing both at once. Viewers who don’t usually identify as horror fans may be a bit put off by the lengths this movie will go to create an unsettling atmosphere, but enthusiasts will adore the places Creep goes to. Of all the horror films of 2015 that you may have missed, make sure Creep is at the top of your watch-list.