A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I've Seen in the Past Year

[5 of 13]

CREEP

(March 2014)

The set-up: Aaron (feature debut director Patrick Brice) is a videographer-for-hire, who goes to work for Josef (Mark Duplass), without initially knowing any pertinent details other than how much the job’s worth, and that “discretion is appreciated.”

That’s really all you need to know too, and I’ll leave Mr. Brice himself to say why.

“I wholeheartedly agree that Creep is a better, more full experience the less you know going into it. We were really trying to make something that a large part of the enjoyment would be the discovery of the film itself.”

Suffice it to say that Creep is pretty much a two-man op. Or, at least, a two-man op with some invaluable help from Blumhouse maestro, Jason Blum.

Working from a rough treatment, Brice and Duplass went off to shoot a majority of the film, which, under the guiding hand of Blum (whose input was, in Brice’s words, meant “to make [Creep] marketable as a horror film”), has resulted in a piece that’s both disturbingly intimate, and intimately disturbing.

“If you want to see a movie like Creep it's because you have two very relationship-oriented filmmakers, guided by Jason Blum, so what you're going to get is a movie that does not follow all of those rules of what a horror movie is. When Jason saw this, he told us, I've seen every piece of shit found footage horror movie, because I'm the guy they came to, but he liked we were not horror filmmakers, that we got the performances right, the relationship dynamics right.”

--Mark Duplass

Parting Shot: As much as Creep impressed (and disturbed) me, I honestly don’t know how to feel about hearing there are plans for sequels…

(Creep OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

¡Qué horror! 2015

Candidate #12

CREEP

(March 2014)

The set-up: Aaron (feature debut director Patrick Brice) is a videographer-for-hire, who goes to work for Josef (Mark Duplass), without initially knowing any pertinent details other than how much the job’s worth, and that “discretion is appreciated.”

That’s really all you need to know too, and I’ll leave Mr. Brice himself to say why.

“I wholeheartedly agree that Creep is a better, more full experience the less you know going into it. We were really trying to make something that a large part of the enjoyment would be the discovery of the film itself.”

Suffice it to say that Creep is pretty much a two-man op. Or, at least, a two-man op with some invaluable help from Blumhouse maestro, Jason Blum.

Working from a rough treatment, Brice and Duplass went off to shoot a majority of the film, which, under the guiding hand of Blum (whose input was, in Brice’s words, meant “to make [Creep] marketable as a horror film”), has resulted in a piece that’s both disturbingly intimate, and intimately disturbing.

“If you want to see a movie like Creep it's because you have two very relationship-oriented filmmakers, guided by Jason Blum, so what you're going to get is a movie that does not follow all of those rules of what a horror movie is. When Jason saw this, he told us, I've seen every piece of shit found footage horror movie, because I'm the guy they came to, but he liked we were not horror filmmakers, that we got the performances right, the relationship dynamics right.”

--Mark Duplass

Parting Shot: As much as Creep impressed (and disturbed) me, I honestly don’t know how to feel about hearing there are plans for sequels…

(Creep OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

SEVERANCE (Review)

For anyone who’s ever thought that team building seminars are a load of bollocks, well, Severance is the film for you.
Directed by Christopher Smith (who helmed the Franka Potente-starrer, Creep), Severance follows a group of Palisade Defence employees, taking a break from a tour of Eastern Europe for a team building weekend in a luxury lodge up in the mountains. Things don’t go quite as planned, of course, and much horror and hilarity ensue.

Horror/comedy mash-ups are always a tricky thing; sometimes the horror is tepid, or the comedy lame. The worst cases are when neither part of the equation works.
There are however, the exceptions, when the production captures just the right mix and leaves us with a classic: John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London; Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever; Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead; James Gunn’s Slither; John Gulager's Feast.
Now you can add Severance to that list.

Lotta funnies here, as the film mines whatever is handy for its potential comedic value: sight gags, points of view, grindhouse conventions, even breaking the fourth wall.
Smith and company then display a canny understanding of comedy, by knowing the value of experiencing the anticipation of a funny, then having the pay-off be the consequence of the funny, without actually showing the audience the funny. (Down that verboten road lies physical comedy and slapstick.)
The funnies are then balanced against the more horrific aspects of the narrative as the machetes and bear traps are pulled out with a splatter flourish.
So effective is the melding that in one memorable sequence, we go from mild amusement to wince-inducing horror on the turn of a dime.

Additionally, what makes Severance even more enjoyable are the performances.
While the characters are borderline stereotype, the actors bring a welcome level of honesty and heart to the table that brings these characters to life (at least until the time comes for them to die).
So, while you may have seen the likes of Richard, the ineffectual boss (Blackadder’s Tim McInnerny, also recognizable to the kiddie congregation as Alonzo, Cruella’s butler from the Dalmatians movies), Gordon, the enthusiastic over-achiever (Andy Nyman), or Steve, the off-his-tits-on-`shrooms under-achiever (Danny Dyer, from Justin Kerrigan’s Human Traffic) before, the actors nevertheless leave an impression, and make the proceedings all the more entertaining.
And yes, I use the words “enjoyable” and “entertaining” to describe a film which has people fleeing through the woods screaming for their lives.

Certainly a sight better than Smith’s previous effort, Creep (which was little more than ho-hum horror we’d all seen before), Severance is an effective exercise in getting us to scream our fool bloody heads off while we stifle the mad giggles. There is even a subtextual swipe against the military and weapons manufacturers that may give one pause in between the shrieks and guffaws. (And in today’s post-9/11 world, you can’t go wrong with that.)

Parting shot: Severance opened last year in Ireland and the United Kingdom on August 25, just two weeks after Wilderness, a film with which it shares a couple of similarities in regards to situation and methods of dispatch. Ultimately though, the films are different entities, and though I may have enjoyed Severance more, Wilderness is still an effective shocker that could be your thing, if straight-up horror is more to your tastes. (Wilderness reviewed here: Archive March 2007.)

(Severance OS courtesy of truemovie.com.)