The Creeping

I decided to watch The Creeping after reading the Dread Central review which called it "A Scary and Classic Haunted House Tale" and I'd fully agree with that. The Creeping is reminiscent of older films from the 70s & 80s that are a bit slower paced but use the time to build up atmosphere and tell a spooky story. There are scares but it takes its time building up to them and is all the better for it. It pays homage to lots of other films whilst still doing its own thing. The performances are all great and the cinematography and sound design work really well. The director was obviously working with a smaller budget than big Hollywood films like The Conjuring but it never distracts from the story. Highly recommended for lovers of retro horror films.

The Creeping is in a way just what you'd think it is: a very British horror movie with chills than full on scares. On the other hand, it is also a very well crafted drama about the effects of dementia on a family, as well as Hammer-like gothic horror. It is quite intentionally made to look like it was produced in the 1970s or 80s. Perhaps this was a stylistic choice, perhaps it was to somewhat cover for the budgetary constraints that led to some cheap looking CGI. Either way, it worked and I enjoyed it. I wouldn't have paid to rent it, but for free on Tubi it makes for some pretty decent entertainment.

I love these movies I happen upon I've never heard of and I get a little scare when I watch. I'm a horror fanatic. I'm so bored and tired of most new horror films. This was a pleasant surprise. I mean I wasn't hiding under my covers, but I got a couple of good little jolts. I also love the lead actress. I thought she was a joy to watch. Very fresh. The main plot was ok, but it was pretty predictable honestly. When you've seen every horror movie you've ever come in contact with, it's hard not to be critical. I'm liking the Japanese and Korean horror these days. The one thing I will say is the ending came pretty uneventful. There really wasn't any big build up.

After the wonderful short I, (2021-also reviewed) I started looking at the list of feature films screening/streaming at the Soho Horror Film Festival, and this ghostly tale caught my eye, giving me a creeping suspicion to see it. View on the film: Creeping round the Reynolds household, editor/co-writer (with Helen Miles) / director Jamie Hooper makes a feature film debut with a refine Gothic Horror atmosphere, thanks to Hooper closely working with Ben Hecking in exploring the house with elegant long panning shots, that when the music box springs opens, spins to jagged whip-pans as the family attempt to flee the ghostly presence invading the household. Brewing an eerie fog over proceedings as a CGI ghostly figure emerges,the slow-burn score from Stephanie Taylor gets hurt, by being plucked for needless whacked up to maximum volume for a quick shock, with Hooper's impressive staging of inventive set-pieces (such as a sequence involving an exhaust pipe) being matched with ill-fitting short bursts of jump-scares. Returning home in order to care for her demented grandmother Lucy, Riann Steele gives an excellent performance as Anna, thanks to Steele delicately linking the screaming terror Anna gets from the ghostly family secret, to the compassion, and love that Anna has for Lucy, who she tries to defend, even when that shadow of a ghost draws near them. Opening a music box to play fragmented flashbacks over what led to the ghostly events, the screenplay by Miles and Hooper unveils refine slow-burn chills, via the haunting entity slowly seeping into every corner of the household, and bringing into sharp focus horrors that the family has faced in the past. Whilst the haunted house shocks take place, the writers pair the supernatural terror, with the personal, family drama anxiety in quiet moments, where Lucy's suffering of dementia becomes extremely visible to Anna, who starts to hear from an empty room, the floorboards creep.

I'm a bit on the fence on this one, it started off pretty good, after awhile I realized I'd seen Anna awaken in the middle of the night to go look for her grandmother several times, call out "Nana" a few dozen times, look around dark rooms with a flashlight several times, and pull a sheet very slowly off a scary object more times than was necessary. It seemed like they were just padding the runtime. The storyline was kinda convoluted and it was hard to tell what was real or dreamt or imagined. Finally, the ghost of the grandfather had effects that seemed cartoonish... It wasn't BAD, but I was disappointed in the long run.

When I sat down to watch the 2022 horror movie "The Creeping", from director Jamie Hooper, I had never actually heard about it. But with it being a horror movie that I hadn't already seen, then I needed no persuasion to sit down and watch it. The storyline and script in the movie, as written by Jamie Hooper and Helen Miles, was so incredinly slow paced and boring. There is an insane amount of dialogue to sit through and there simply just isn't enough of anything overly interesting or scary going on throughout the course of the 94 minutes that the movie dragged on for. And I do mean 'dragged' literally. I was on the brink of giving up on watching "The Creeping" just 40 minutes into the ordeal, but opted to endure the suffering in the hopes of the movie picking up in pace and intensity. I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie. But it should be noted that the acting performances had potential, just a genuine shame that the actresses and actors virtually had nothing to work with from the script in terms of plot, dialogue and anything interesting. If you enjoy horror movies, such as I do, then do yourself a favor and skip on wasting 94 minutes on watching "The Creeping". It is a dull and monotonous viewing experience that doesn't even remotely functions as a proper horror movie. My rating of director Jamie Hooper's 2022 movie "The Creeping" lands on a very, very generous three out of ten stars, and that is based solely on the acting performances and the production value the movie had, because the script was just simply a swing and a miss.