Creep

Patrick Brice, 2015

IMDB

3/5

You realize after watching this film that it's not really scary per se, but just down right creepy. So the title is very suitable. Perhaps what separates the creepiness from pure horror is how realistic the film actually feels. Maybe it's the found footage style that they are working with. Maybe it's the whole responding to an ad on Craigslist story that we constantly read about in the headlines. 

There's something about the lonely guy who doesn't respect boundaries that's almost scarier than an empty eyed cold blooded killer in the woods like Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th. Duplass brings complexity to his character. Even while you are feeling completely uncomfortable in his presence, you feel confusingly sympathetic. Instead of the film falling into predictable twists, it breaks some of the conventions of the found footage style and plays with it. They aren't afraid to experiment with the genre here, and that benefits the film greatly. You are never really sure what depths the film is going to sink to, and you are never really sure what the limits are. It's sure to surprise anyone watching. The Duplass Brothers are out there creating things in film that other people aren't creating. We are living in the peak time for young creative directors to generate stories on small budgets, and they are fortunately taking advantage of their resources. 

Preservation

Christopher Denham, 2015

IMDB

3/5

Denham succeeds with this indie horror/thriller by purposefully not trying to reinvent the wheel. He knows what the film is, and doesn't try to break any new ground. He makes his mark through a very John Carpenter-esque score, and through some really artful camera work. The film is more of an homage to the 80's slasher films with the killer in the woods like Friday the 13th and Evil Dead. The film also largely works because of the acting work by Wrenn Schmidt (Our Idiot Brother), Pablo Schreiber (The Wire, Orange is the New Black) and Aaron Staton (Mad Men).

The first half hour or so of the film is dedicated to introducing the three main characters. Brothers Sean (Schreiber) and Mike (Staton) bring along Mike's wife Wit (Schmidt) on a camping trip. The brothers are clearly veteran campers, with an edge going to Sean because he is a an actual military veteran where he was able to perfect a lot of survival skills. Sean also suffers with PTSD sustained during his tours abroad. Because of this there is an obvious divide between the two brothers, with Mike sort of unsure of Sean's unpredictable actions and mood swings. There's also marital trouble between Mike and Wit. They don't have a really intimate relationship, and Mike is mostly conducting business on his cell-phone. So it's not just three innocent happy-go-lucky people venturing into the woods together. There is tension from the start, some ambiguity as to who the people really are and what we will learn about them when things start heading south. Actually the most pure character from the get-go is probably Sean's loyal and intelligent German Shepherd.

When the film makes it's inevitable shift, things turn from tense to brutal as the three campers are preyed upon by merciless forces. There's something interesting about the true display of who you are as a person when you are put in a situation like this, where you are thrown into the wilderness with nothing but your wits. It's been done before in The Blair Witch Project, where you see humans stripped down to nothing but weepy, desperate shells. Preservation manages to take a stale premise and repackages it with fresh visual elements. That might not be enough to please everyone but it was enough to satisfy me.

Honeymoon

Leigh Janiak, 2014

IMDB

1/5

The Sci-Fi/horror genre has become so offensively saturated with mostly copycat knockoffs of past classics, reusing old tropes and beating them to death. Regurgitated themes. Re-purposed cliches. Sometimes when you watch something that feels like a huge waste of your time, making you think that maybe its all been done before. That maybe there aren't any new ideas in this genre. But then every now and then, something will float to the surface. Something will stand out. Films like The Conjuring, The Cabin in the Woods or Insidious will appear and it gives us all hope. It gives us hope that maybe there can be new things done with the seemingly forlorn genre.

Unfortunately, Honeymoon doesn't fall into this category of refreshing and unique horror films that are trying new things. Instead it falls into that category of pretty good acting spoiled by an awful script and amateur direction. Janiak tries to make too much with too little here. This one can be filed under the category of predictably stagnant alien films. It's a bit irritating too, because you are likely delighted to see Rose Leslie on screen after seeing her in Game of Thrones or Downton Abbey. She has already proven herself a good actress while working with good material. But she doesn't have a whole lot to work with here. In fact, her Bea character and husband Paul (Harry Treadaway) characters are actually quite annoying. You spend the first 20 minutes of the film watching them groping each other like a couple of spider monkeys. To be expected on ones honeymoon. But we aren't going into this movie hoping to spectate a weekend of lovemaking. That's another kind of movie that we can watch some other time. That one will probably be better directed as well. Because you will have two minutes of foreplay and casual dialogue and they will get down to business. Honeymoon takes a lot of time getting to where it wants to, when most of the audience will probably know where it's going the entire time. The decision making on the parts of Paul's character are frustrating. The most obvious of them all is his inability to get Bea in the car and away from the cabin. Her condition continues to decline, his solution is to fondle her more and tell her how much he misses her. His character seems to be desperately horny, like he should have been in Deadgirl and not Honeymoon. Honeymoon feels like a weak ripoff of a Stephen King story with too much build-up and an insufficient reveal.