Mister Creep (2022) Review
In a shabby looking cell an unseen policeman is interrogating the clown-faced serial killer Mister Creep (Brian D. Anderson, Secret of the Shroud, Abduction of the Fourth Kind). He even reminds him that cooperation could mean the difference between “a full life in prison or the death penalty”. How can you pass up a deal like that? That turns into footage of an unseen entire police crime scene detail being killed by someone we never see but I would guess is Mister Creep or Joe as the cop called him.
Next, we meet Beth (Amber Lee Solis), Val (Shaela Payne, Self, A Presence Behind the Door), John (Ali Alkhafaji, Deadware, Save Yourself), and their cameraman Dave (Thomas Burke, The Pizzagate Massacre, The Barbados Project) who are shooting a class project on the trail of disappearances stretching back twenty years and which seems to be linked to the opening murders.
Writer/director Isaac Rodriguez (A Town Full of Ghosts, Last Radio Call) once again goes the found footage route to tell his story. And the story of Mister Creep is a fairly familiar one, Val turns out to have a serious obsession with serial killers and tells the rest of them about Mister Creep who allegedly killed over two hundred people and broadcast videos of his victims. Broadcasts that continue even though he’s long dead. And of course, they manage to track down the source of the broadcasts.
Also like Rodriguez’s previous films, Mister Creep is short running just an hour plus credits and a post-credits scene. This means the viewer is spared the endless wandering around dark corridors, woods, or the other padding that so many of these films have. The film doesn’t waste time and gets down to business fairly quickly.
However, we’re not spared the terrible decision-making on the part of the characters. They break into an abandoned police station looking for information and find very obvious clues that someone is living there, like a bed with clean sheets level obvious, and they still go poking around.
There’s also the all-too-common issue of who edited the interrogation footage into what the students shot and added the title cards that divide it into segments, etc. And, the most common of all, why do they keep filming when all they should be concerned with is how fast they can run?
If you’re a fan or at least a regular viewer of found footage films then you’re probably used to dealing with these issues. And if they aren’t a turnoff Mister Creep does have its moments. There are a few decent jump scares and some of the footage of his broadcasts is grotesque enough to be creepy.
In particular, a scene where they interview Mary (Judy McMillan, An American in Texas, Average Joe) who claims to have written a book on the killer that she was barred from publishing. It starts with a creepy story about the killer’s childhood and heads in an obvious direction, but it still made me jump.
Unfortunately, much of the film’s effectiveness is blunted by its over-familiarity and reliance on cliches like a car suddenly dying at the worst possible moment, people splitting up and of course, going after a serial killer with nothing more than a pocket knife for protection. They must be the only people in Texas who don’t own a gun.
The result is a rather uneven film that, while not as good as Last Radio Call is still much better the A Town Full of Ghosts. With its short running time it never really drags and has enough effective moments to keep you watching, especially if you’re a found footage aficionado.
Mister Creep will be released to Digital platforms on December 5th. You can check the director’s Facebook page for more information. If you’re looking to find more footage like this, FilmTagger can help you out.