Thursday, February 4, 2016

tubby time.

This has been sitting in a cupboard ignored for about a year now.

A wee bit like your mum.

And like her I thought I'd give it a whirl seeing as I had nowt better to do as I was expecting it to be a bit pants.

Blooming flip was I mistaken.

By the way, if you fancy it go to it cold and read this review after viewing.

You'll thank me for it later.

Unless of course you hate it then no doubt more death threats will follow.

But frankly if you do hate it then you're no pal of mine.

Enjoy.

Creep (2014).
Dir:  Patrick Brice.
Cast:  Patrick Brice and Mark Duplass.

"When you were here before,
Couldn't look you in the eye,
You're just like an angel,
Your skin makes me cry,
You float like a feather,
In a beautiful world,
I wish I was special,

Now shut the fuck up 
or I'll bum you whilst 
wearing this 
Chucklehounds mask"


Furry chinned cine-guy Aaron (Co-writer and director Brice) has recently replied to an ad on Craiglist (Which is, for those that don't know a classified ads website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, 'personals', stuff for sale, items wanted, 'services', community, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums....think Gumtree but with more chances of having sex with someone’s gran) from the bowl-haired - and terminally ill - Josef (Duplass channelling a post breakdown Crackerjack star Stu Francis).

The job is simple, all Aaron has to do is record a series of video of Josef waxing lyrical to his unborn son.

How sweet.

Things get off to a slightly uncomfortable start tho' when the first thing that Aaron is asked to film is Josef, stark bollock naked in a bath tub pretending to give his invisible baby a bath before pretending to drown himself in a fit of depression.

But not to worry as Josef tells a visibly shaken Aaron, he only did it for a laugh.

Which you must admit is the same reason that your parents decided to keep you.

To clear the air (well Aaron did almost shit himself)  Josef suggests that the pair take a quick hike up to a heart-shaped pool that it is said - in local legends - to cure all ills.

Anyway, whilst getting a winter jacket out of the cupboard, Aaron is startled to find a (frankly shoddy as fuck if I'm honest) wolf mask sitting on the top shelf.

Grrrrrr.

Luckily and before Aaron legs it home thinking his employer is a mentalist,  Josef explains that his father used to wear the mask around the house and pretend to be a friendly wolf named Peachfuzz who would sing and dance to entertain him as a child.

Nope, nowt sinister there.

"Ooooh I could rape a turkey!"


Having a fun time in the woods and splashing about in the pond, Aaron's day seem to be going well with only Josef's habit of intermittently jumping out from behind rocks and shouting "Arse!" putting a damper on the proceedings but  Josef, aware of Aaron's nervous nature, apologies for having what he calls  "a weird sense of humour".

Which is a polite way of saying he's an annoying cunt if I'm honest.

Enjoying some fairly disappointing pancakes (what is it about this film and your mum?) at a handy roadside restaurant after their day hiking, Josef admits to hiding in the bushes and taking photos of Aaron before they met.

His reason?

Well according to it he wanted to get to know him before speaking to him in person.

Sounds legit.

It's OK tho' because Josef apologizes profusely before adding that he reckons that Aaron has a wee bit of an animal inside him that's just itching to escape.

Heading back to Josef's house after a hard days filming, Josef asks Aaron to stay for a farewell drink before leaving and Aaron being a bit of a pussy if I'm honest agrees.

I mean it's not like the day can get any stranger is it?

"Hello French Polishers? You might just be able to save my life!"

Supping away at a glass of cheap whiskey Josef asks Aaron to turn off the camera as he has a confession to make.

Aaron agrees but sneakily leaves the sound recording, capturing the almost You've Been Framed quality moment when Josef admitted that he lied about his dad owning Peachfuzz.

But that's not all.

It seems that years back Josef was concerned that his wife was addicted to animal porn (whose isn’t?) so after taking her to the summer house for a weekend away pretended to be called into work leaving her home alone.

And this is where the similarities to that movie end.

Unless of course you believe the rumours regarding Daniel Stern.

Anyway in reality he'd actually just sneaked out to the local hardware store where he purchased the aforementioned mask.

But why? I hear you cry.

So that he could break into the house, tie her to the bed and violently bugger her whilst wearing it of course.

By now Aaron is beginning to question whether this is really worth the twenty quid he's charging for the day and hastily gets up to leave only to find out that, uh oh, his car keys have gone missing.

Josef says he can stay the night.

In a frankly fab case of quick thinking, Aaaron agrees and offers to pour them another drink - but not before lacing it with cough medicine  which causes Josef to fall asleep and begin fiddling with his penis.

At last, one of your dads habits gets a nod.

Whilst frantically searching for his keys Josef's phone suddenly starts ringing and Aaron quickly answers it before hiding in a cupboard.

Aaron assumes that the call is Mavis, Josef's 'wife' but she quickly explains that she's really his sister and that Aaron needs to get out of the house as soon as he can on the grounds that Josef is in fact a fucking fruitloop.

"Spice Girls number one for Christmas.....MONSTA!"


Running thru' the kitchen to grab his coat Aaron finds Josef gone, desperately searching for him in a girlie panic before finding his hairy host blocking the front door whilst gyrating and growling in the Peachfuzz mask lookin all the world like Barry Chuckle on crack.

Which, if I'm honest is probably one of the most disturbing things ever committed to celluloid.

Frankly bored - and a little perturbed by Josef's shenanigans, Aaron charges at him and suddenly the camera goes black.

As in the picture obviously, I mean the camera housing is already a nice matt black plastic finish anyway....it's not a kiddies V-Tech one.

V-Tech - For kids (massive overbite not included).

Don't panic tho' as Aaron is OK.

And more importantly you've not been fleeced by a paying full price for a really short movie.

You see the video resumes with Aaron informing us that he escaped Josef's house and made it home safely - albeit with slightly soiled underwear, but he's a wee bit concerned as he's recently received a DVD in the mail featuring our mental mate Josef burying some suspicious-looking bin bags in the woods.

Aaron, understandably thinks it is meant as a threat.

That's not all tho' as the 'gifts' continue to come; first  Josef sends him a huge carton containing a knife and a stuffed wolf alongside yet another DVD - this one featuring Josef apologizing for the last one and a request that he use the knife to cut open the cuddly wolf.

Which sounds quite reasonable if you ask me.

Which you didn't so I'll shut up.

Intrigued as to why, Aaron carefully cuts open the wolf to find a heart-shaped  locket inside with Josef's and Aaron's pictures in it.

But Aaron, being a fairly ungrateful bastard chucks in the bin.

Which as you can probably guess doesn't go down too well With Josef.

As the messages continue and the police seem unable (or unwilling) to help Aaron begins to become more paranoid with every sleepless night until the fateful day that he receives one last message from Josef, asking him to come to the park near his house to allow him to explain everything and finally "give them closure".....

Hmmm.....

"Five fingers...never touched the sides."


Patrick Brice's Creep is a genuinely unnerving, cut back - and bad - to the bone chiller that packs more uncomfortable situations and stuttering strangeness into it's scarily short 78 minutes than most films with twice the number of cast members and five times the budget could even attempt to.

Almost theatre-like in it's (twitchy) two-hander approach to the subject matter, both leads give everything they've got to make the situation more and more unbearable (yet frighteningly plausible) as the film unfolds, Duplass especially is a joy to watch bringing a genuine pathos to Josef - we want to spend time with him even tho' we know it's going to end badly just to see what hideously inappropriate confession he's gonna make next.

If anything it's the kind of movie you can't say much about except for watch it now and see what a true auteur can achieve within the found footage framework.

Recommended.

And I don't often say that.

And hardly ever about your mum.

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