Creep film review

certificate_18

CREEP

There's a complex formula on the accompanying press release for the new British horror film Creep which lists all of the ingredients needed to make a genuine scary movie: Escalating music, the unknown, shock and a dark room all feature in this quasi-scientific mumbo jumbo, and they also feature in the film itself. But while director Christopher Smith's debut outing makes a stab at containing all of the requisite elements it lacks some of the key ingredients, notably likeable characters and a plot that contains one or two decent surprises. Worst of all, the most shocking thing about this horror film is that it becomes pretty tedious pretty quickly.

Kate (Franka Potente, who made her name in Run, Lola Run) is a twentysomething media type who we first meet at a party full of self-involved fashionistas, among them the lascivious Guy (Jeremy Sheffield). On a whim, Kate decides to leave the party and head into town because - wait for it - George Clooney is supposedly in London for the evening. Whether or not this is meant to be a joke is unclear.

Slightly the worse for wear, Kate makes for the tube but falls asleep on the platform, only to wake up and find it deserted. But when a solitary train appears, she jumps on it. This turns out to be a big mistake, as her night of passion with Gorgeous George becomes something the press release would desperately like to be 'a frightening descent into the shadowy world of suburban London'.

What it actually becomes is a chase film with a marked lack of suspense, involving the reappearance of Guy, a couple of homeless people who try to help Kate, and the gradual (very gradual) revelation that something rather sinister is lurking in the underground. There's meant to be a purported twist as to what this demonic threat might be, but The Sixth Sense this is not.