I hate British films with a passion. Bar one or two notable exceptions, I also despise the constant fall back to the one thing Brits make good films in: romantic bloody comedies. It’s a tragic state of affairs that the British film industry is more a charity of pity than it is an industry. Out of this cesspool of under investment, and lack of vision comes Creep from director and writer Christopher Smith. Funnily, it’s not a rom com.

Kate (Franka Potente) heads to a party where George Clooney is supposed to be hanging out in London in the bid to pull him. Her friend who’s supposed to get them into the VIP suite has already left without her, and Kate heads off late at night to catch the tube to get to her destination.

Predictably this is not going to happen, and Kate (have having drank a small bottle of alcohol) is sound asleep on the platform, having missed the last train and now finding herself locked inside the train station, ready for a good a beating from the bogeyman. Luckily for her, although no one is around, a train arrives at the station and she boards. It seems, however, that someone has followed her and joins her.

The train stops, the lights go out and Guy (Jeremy Sheffield) turns up. Having tried to pull Kate at the party, and now high on cocaine, he has stalked her to the tube station and attempts to rape her. Fortunately for Kate, the train doors open and tear Guy away from her. Unfortunately for her, he’s pretty much been mauled, but somehow gets back on the train long enough to tell her to run, before being dragged away screaming again. So Kate’s journey begins to escape from her pursuer, and along the way make new friends and victims in equal measure. Where Kate goes, her new crazed psychotic friend follows, and leaves a blood trail the sort of which Hansel & Gretel woud leave if they were cannibals.

Creep offers less chills as your deep freezer, and less scares than a mass “trick or treat” convention. For one thing it seems to potray the homeless in a very bad light, of course this is perhaps for artistic purposes, but still the stereotype that all homeless people or tramps are addicted drug users is pretty much bollocks. Secondly the stereotype that the token black guy in the film, George (Vas Blackwood), happens to be working in the sewers with and old fart called Arthur (Ken Campbell), because he was done for being a drug pusher is also a cheap shot, and clearly evidence that Smith’s scriptwriting is about as interesting and original as Jordan’s latest publicity stunt. At least he continues to promote the stereotype that most British films, and new British directors, are all money grabbing, unoriginal dreamers with all the ability of an arthiritec dog. What we have here is a man who probably considers Paul Anderson as God-like.

So, with the commonality and sterotypes out of the way, what we’re left with is a film that echoes the tiresome acting and gore of Saw, and mixes it with the story writing equivalent of an instruction manual found in an item you bought from Japan, where they tell you how to put something together in Haiku written in Japlish. Crazed psycho chases girl around tube station, and girl happens to be a blonde, up her own arse, “middle class” and completely hysterical for 95% of the film.

It seems the director, aside from ripping off all 80s “guide-to-making-horror” secrets, has decided to indulge in perhaps some personal inadequecies in the form of an inferiority complex, or some other issue where he acts out his own lack of self esteem and confidence in his characters. It’s like a bad dream really. There is one scene which is prominent more so than any other, and is quite a strong scene of violence, perhaps indicating some personal inhibition being realised, when the killer takes a large surgical instrument and repeatedly molests the female victim with a vicious brutality that is mildly disturbing.

You have to wonder why, of all the scenes, this is given most prominence. A lack of ideas? A gimick? Or perhaps some deep seated within the wannabe director/writer of his own fear of women, or his desires? Sure it’s a film, and perhaps there’s more being read into it by me than needed, after all it’s a crap film. Still, with all the stereotypes, all the unoriginality, this is still given a lot of screen time and is probably sensationlist but I suspect there’s more. Of course it adds nothing whatsoever to the film overall, and doesn’t really given an indiciation into the mind of the killer, except that he’s a killer, he likes to kill, and sometimes viciously. The scene offers something initially but then falls into the trap of barbaric and nauseating violence. Anyone can direct a violence scene, but this has no context whatsoever.

More importantly you don’t care what happens to anyone in the film. Franka Potente just doesn’t convince as the hysterical blonde, perhaps taking the role as a break through to something greater, but she doesn’t seem to be taking it seriously enough. She looks bored, stand offish and just coming along for the ride. By comparison, Vas Blackwood is amusing as ever, and as a person has bags of character. Whether playing a character in Channel 4’s Desmond’s, or the psycho afro gangster from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Even if this poor man’s excuse for a film, he manages to lift the film with his personality, but eventually snuffs it anyway.

Credit to the make up team, who actually offers something worth praising. From the gore effects which are pretty decent, to the brusing and cuts inflicted upon the characters. Other than this single praise, much of the film can be summed up in one common word: bad. By bad I mean appalling, not bad as in good, which is often confused these days. The characters often swim in sewage through the film, and that’s certainly what it looks like watching this pile of crap.

Verdict: Disturbingly dire, and another nail in the coffin for British film making. No more, please