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The Creep Tapes: Season 1
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - United Kingdom - Acorn Media Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (10th June 2025). |
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The Film
 You might know him as Josef from Creep or Aaron from Creep 2, Mark Duplass' serial killer is a born performer and the Shudder series The Creep Tapes – created by the film's writer/director Patrick Brice (The Overnight) – reveals just how adaptable he is with his modus operandi of luring filmmakers to remote places to film him, playing with his prey, and then killing them in a series of shorter episodes. In "Mike" (26:23), a struggling filmmaker (Mike Luciano) drives up into the mountains to film a portfolio reel for a man hoping to audition for an exclusive acting program while "Elliot" (23:45) is a birder (David Nordstrom) given a tip by a blog follower about the sighting of a rare bird in a remote area of the wetlands only to come across a disoriented parachutist blown way off course. In "Jeremy" (24:42), the host of a "gotcha" video channel (Twin Peaks: The Return' Josh Fadem) plans to make a priest at a remote retreat the subject of exposé on abuse in the Catholic church while in "Brad" (27:17), a man incites the "Godfather of True Crime Documentaries" (Scare Me's Josh Ruben) to his house to make a documentary on a fresh murder. When prospective victim "Brandt" (23:41) seems like he is a no-show, our serial killer discovers just how dangerous his own alter ego Wolfie can be when he picks a fight. Finally, in "Mom (and Albert)" (25:08), our killer is none-too-pleased when he discovers mom (The Killing of John Lennon's Krisha Fairchild) has taken a lover ('s John Craven) who she is willing to let provide a greater degree of intimacy than her son ("You remember when we watched 9 1/2 Weeks together? I'm living 9 1/2 Weeks fifty-two weeks out of the year"). Although the episodes have no apparent chronology and may or may not be prequels or sequels to the two features, The Creep Tapes seem to be set around their shooting year of 2023, opening up his pool of victims to the influencer era when just about anyone is a "filmmaker" while allowing him to be even more selective in selecting victims – including "old timers" who have fallen behind and are desperate to find a new hook – and how he can reel them in. In spite of the show's attempts to vary things, there is a certain monotony to The Creep Tapes that is all the more apparent when binge-watching – as the Blu-ray format and Shudder's on-demand streaming allows and even encourages one to do – especially considering the delight with which the killer before he strikes notes that he was dropping hints all along and none of the victims seem to pick up on it. While "Mike", "Elliot", or "Brad" might have made an interesting short film extra on one of the physical media releases of the feature films or even as a leaked "viral video" promotion revealing that the killer has done the things in the movie before or has continued doing them since, a second season might be more interesting if we get a bit more of the killer trying to make things more challenging for himself when a victim has way too little survival instinct. The Brandt and "Mom (and Albert)" are the more interesting because they are less predictable; the former especially because we have no idea if we are actually seeing "found footage" that he is shooting himself or a surreal hallucination that happens to be shot in the "found footage" style in which he usually appears on video. The relationship with Mom does not suggest an innocent child warped by a narcissist so much as a the perfect storm between a child with undiagnosed mental issues and a mother whose issues might similarly have been dismissed in an earlier era as nothing that could not be handled with some Valium and alcohol; although, there is the very real possibility that this woman is just another nut with which he is role-playing. Since Shudder has renewed the show for another season, it will be interesting to see if the filmmakers are actually interested in evolving the character or just producing filler with the excuse of a serial killer's ritualized behavior. 
Video
Like the feature films, The Creep Tapes episodes were shot using the MiniDV standard definition digital prosumer Panasonic AG-DVX100A camera – an early affordable 24p camera that had a 4x3 anamorphic squeeze mode for shooting stretching to 16:9 in post in addition to the 4x3 fullscreen and 4:3 letterbox modes – passed down to Duplass by his brother Jay Duplass (Transparent) and presumably had some sophisticated industry-level upscaling in post. The 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen image holds up very well given the shooting aesthetic of handheld cameras as character POVs darting around to sudden noises, skin tones skewed by the differing lighting temperatures of practical sources, some underexposure noise, and middling shadow detail (the darker parts of the Brandt episode might have been shot brighter and darkened in post). 
Audio
All of the episodes are presented with English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo mixes with a largely naturalistic sound design with jump scares seeming like a mix of raised voices on location and added sound effects, with only the opening and end credits scoring and the Brandt episodes having some more interesting sound work including some possible vocal processing to the Wolfie "character" to make it sound more unnatural from the killer's perspective than himself doing a voice. Optional English SDH subtitles are included. 
Extras
All episodes are accompanied by an audio commentaryby actor/co-writer Mark Duplass, co-writer/creator/director Patrick Brice, and executive producer Christopher Donlon in which they discuss the series which was shot independently in various Airbnb rentals and then picked up by Shudder. They reveal that they shot the last and first episodes before the WGA strike. They also discuss the use of filmmakers who were also actors for the roles of the victims, noting that Luciano was the creator of Animals. (produced by Duplass' brotehr Jay), describing Nordstrom as a documentary filmmaker in "the body of a matinee idol," and that Ruben an actual horror filmmaker that Brice met because he bid and won signed posters for the Creep films for a charity auction. When they returned, Duplass grew a beard and would trim it back into different styles for each episode. Duplass discusses his and his character's predilection for getting naked for laughs, as well as noting how some of his characters recurring mannerisms are child-like. He also jokingly reveals that the Brandt was inspired by childhood issues with his brother while he and Brice note that the mother episode was written in such a way that they could backtrack on what was revealed if need be for later episodes. The only other extra is an extremely brief Q&A with Mark Duplass and Patrick Brice (1:03) presumably shot for social media given the vertical video framing. 
Overall
Given the scenario, The Creep Tapes: Season One cannot help but feel monotonous when binge-watched but individual episodes but the filmmakers do try to vary and subvert their approach with the last two episodes. 
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