Creepers | Movie Review

To be totally honest, I didn’t want to write this review. Is that something I should even share? Probably not, but in this instance I feel I have to, if only to explain why.

I don’t like writing bad reviews. To take it a step farther, I don’t like to not like something. I’m one of those people who will find something, ANYTHING, to like about an artistic creation, because all art has something of value in it, even if it’s only the recognition of the hard work that went into it. When I feel like art is made by amateurs, or people new to the craft, I’m especially sympathetic. I know what it’s like. So for me to say something negative is almost a painful process, yet I have to, because no artist grows by being coddled.

CREEPERS is not a very good movie. Composed of four short films (each one an adaptation of a written work) set amongst a bookend story, CREEPERS attempts to tingle spines, horrify, and in one short create laughter. They only succeed with one of those, and even that success is minimal.

The four short films are based on stories by Jeff Strand’s “Gave Up the Ghost,” Joe R. Lansdale’s “By the Hair of the Head,” Edgar Allan Poe’s “Berenice,” and Lafcadio Hearn’s “Of a Promise Broken.” Each short has its own director and cast.

Frankly, the only short that actually engaged me was “Gave Up The Ghost,” the story of a young man whose computer goes kaput after he types the last line of his latest and greatest novel. Unlike the rest of the film, “Ghost” is a comedy, and as such it works. I laughed more than a few times. The rest, though, are rather drawn out, boring affairs that attempt horror but never achieve it. “Promise” gets the closest, with Catherine Ashton turning in a very good performance as a terrified new bride, but ultimately it’s undone by the actor playing her husband, Joshua Sienkiewicz, and his enthusiasm to perform. No other performances merit any mention, good or bad.

Sadly, that’s as much as I can bring myself to write about this movie. I don’t know the talent level of the cast and crew that made this anthology film, so I’m not going to make guesses about how well or poorly they did, since some might have given this everything they had. I know I couldn’t even begin to put a film like this together. But this film was put together, and the producers asked for people to watch and review it, so that’s what I’m doing now. CREEPERS is a rather boring film with little of merit to it. It’s not a bad film, per say, but it’s not good either.

Justin Macumber
The Hollywood Outsider