Creep (2005) - 2.5 out of 5 Stars

I want to start by saying “Ich liebe Franka Potente.” She was the reason I watched this movie. Having said that, I still rated this movie 2.5 stars, because there were some elements that I could not let go. You can only suspend your belief so much.

The storyline is pretty interesting. Leading into the film I was very much set for a good story, the lack of orchestration and a late night viewing lent itself to an extra creepiness factor; all of this is good. But about a third of the way into the movie you begin to see the ragged edges. There are only 6 real characters in the film, including what you would assume as tertiary characters ; superfluous to the plot of the film and story, but apparently each of these characters needed to have a back-story that, if it was told as part of the film itself, was alluded heavily and multiply throughout the movie. Trying to make each of these characters sympathetic, so that you will feel bad when/if they die, even the villain of the piece.

Which leads me to the titular character; Creep. The deal breaker for me on this was the fact that the director, who also wrote the piece, wanted the antagonist to be sympathetic; not a monster but a misunderstand person. And that in and of itself is fine. I got that, I felt bad for the little critta, he doesn’t know any better. But, all of these characters are sympathetic, apparently, and so we shouldn’t want any of them to die, but they do. You spend an hour or so getting to believe in, and like or dislike, a character, and so you want them to “make it,” especially when it looks as though they are about to defeat the “baddy.”

Franka’s character, Kate, sees both the evil and the misunderstanding in the Creep, and so, of course, is torn between killing it because it is evil and murdering it because it is misunderstood. But through the movie, after it is established that the Creep is bad, and will do very bad things to you no matter what your opinions of it are, Kate has multiple opportunities to end it, literally, and she either runs away or misses and stands there as the Creep kills yet another sympathetic “I want you to live because I know your back-story” ancillary character, and then runs away. These moments are always where the “baddy” looks into the eyes of the protagonist and there is a moment, between them, where the protagonist thinks “If I don’t kill it, it will let me go free.” WHICH NEVER HAPPENS!!!! So you lose another friend because you didn’t act. I mean, monster’s half dead because of a beating it just took from a tertiary character, and all you have to do is end it, one simple swing, or stab, or shot, and the movie ends with multiple survivors., but nope. It doesn’t happen. Story goes on, you run away, only to have to face it again and maybe this time you’ll realize that sometimes there is no saving the wicked. You can’t change deranged.

I wavered for a while before I rated it, because it was not a bad movie, it was just the inability to act in one’s best interest, to act in the interest of the character’s instead of the story. The movie is worth watching once, but I would suggest that when you get to the point where you think that the monster is going to die, stop the movie, and imagine a really brutal death scene in your head. Or at that point, skip to the last five minutes of the film, because the final scene was pretty darn enjoyable, for me at least. But I’m twisted like that.