MY CALL: A well-made, sufficiently entertaining, and somewhat forgettable “monster stalks scared woman” type flick. The gore is decent, so is the acting and general production value. But still, you’re not missing anything if you skip this entirely. MORE MOVIES LIKE Creep: For more subway/train horror, consider Death Line (1972; aka Raw Meat), Terror Train (1980), Beyond the Door III (1989; aka Dark Train, Death Train), Hellraiser VII: Deader (2005; some cool train scenes), Midnight Meat Train (2008), Stag Night (2008), Howl (2015), and the trainiest of all “train horror” Train to Busan (2016).
On her way to a chic party to meet George Clooney, Kate (Franka Potente; The Conjuring 2, Anatomy 1-2) falls asleep at the subway and misses the last train. Now trapped in the London train station for the night, Kate finds that she is not alone in the train system corridors. There seems to be some kind of killer stalking her in the darkness, and brutally killing any hapless homeless person or night security guard she may hazard upon.
The cat and mouse game played by this “Creep” (Sean Harris; Possum, Prometheus, Isolation, Deliver Us from Evil) and Kate plays out like a top-tier B-movie. Victims trying to help Kate are dragged to their doom into the darkness, pulled up through ceiling openings by their head, or meet some other demise.
At first, it’s like one of the Morlock troglodytes from The Descent (2005) relocated to the subways. But deeper into the film, it feels a lot more like a Wrong Turn (2003) inbred hillbilly took to the sewers instead. The Creep has a lair, keeps captives in his sewer prison, harvests chunks of meat from victims to feed his swarm of rats as if it was a house chore, and plays doctor mutilating victims.
The blood and gore are worthy of mention. Some serious gashes, wound work, throat slashing and ripping, and a lovely head impalement transpires. But this movie is more about a weird, deformed, homicidal sewer dweller than it is a creature feature. We eventually learn the odd medical origin of the Creep; an underground facility sealed in within the sewer and train system.
Writer and director Christopher Smith (Severance, Triangle, Black Death) has made a well-produced, capable horror film that sufficiently entertains. This movie is nothing special at all—it brings nothing new to the table, no jaw-dropping reveals, and no death scenes or gore gags that you simply “must” see. But it’s really decently made and perfectly entertaining. I also really enjoyed the use of the dog (my favorite character).
