When a horror villain can’t even scare their victims anymore, what hope is there for them to scare the audience? That’s the question asked by Patrick Brice and Mark Duplass in the 2017 found footage film Creep 2. The sequel sees Aaron, the now-renamed serial killer from the first film (played by co-writer Duplass) in a mid-life crisis. Despite continuing to lure in unsuspecting victims to murder, he feels unfulfilled and considers a “retirement” from his acts.
That is until he stumbles upon Sara (Desiree Akhavan), the creator of a struggling documentary series about people she meets on Craigslist. Aaron, in a moment of inspiration, decides to hire her to record a documentary delving into his psyche as a serial killer. But when she gets there, she’s unimpressed by his claims, and either doesn’t react or straight up laughs off several of his attempts to scare her. Aaron finds himself having to raise the bar over and over, trying to find something that will finally be extreme enough to get under Sara’s skin.
In the original Creep, what makes Aaron so frightening is his unpredictable nature. At first glance, he’s not much more than a socially awkward recluse. As his behavior becomes more unhinged and sinister, it’s unnerving for both his victims and the audience. We’re unsure of how exactly the movie is going to progress. Neither us nor the victim have seen anything like this before.
But in the sequel we get Sara. She’s used to meeting strange people and exploring why exactly they behave the way they do. Aaron isn’t remarkable. Early on he questions her lack of emotion, trying in vain to provoke a reaction for a good chunk of the movie. It’s hard not to find her unimpressed reactions to Aaron reminiscent of how many of us react to the horror media we consume. While the film is obviously poking fun at the original by showing its scares as ineffective, it’s also pointing out just how critical many viewers have become.
When we see the same tricks and tactics used over and over again by different movies, they elicit less and less of a response. There is a somewhat self-defeating nature to being a horror fan, in that the genre is built around shocking you with things you haven’t seen before, which becomes harder to do the more of it you see.
This problem increases when taking into account the amount of long-running horror franchises out there; with each entry, writers must come up with new ways to titillate audiences and make a familiar premise disturbing once again. In 2022 alone we have seen a new Halloween, a new Predator, a new Scream, and the list goes on. Trying to scare a jaded and experienced audience is one of the greatest challenges these films face.
One of the most important scenes from the original Creep sees Aaron on a hike with his victim, all the while relaying disturbing details of his life story, setting the foundation for the unease and dread that ramps up throughout the rest of the film. In Creep 2, he attempts to recreate this moment on film, only for both him and Sara to continuously cut things short due to minor “mistakes,” leading to the speech about Aaron’s life restarting over and over, almost exactly the same each time. While attempting to recreate the feeling from the original scene, Aaron has instead removed any of the natural tension he originally created.
At the same time, as many modern horror movies attempt to callback and references to moments in horror past — either from their own franchise or others entirely — the original feelings these moments gave the audience are also lessened or gone entirely as studios attempt to recapture lightning in a bottle.
Despite Sara being unaffected by Aaron’s efforts in scaring her, the two manage to form a bond over the course of the time they spend together. Several intimate conversations between the two and a steamy game of Two Truths and a Lie bring them close together, which Aaron sees as an opportunity to finally scare Sara.
In a dramatic moment, Aaron successfully fakes hanging himself in front of Sara. The act does succeed in provoking an emotional reaction. After being unfazed by his actions all night, she’s finally frightened by something he’s done. But the problem is she’s not just scared, she’s furious and wants to leave. In trying to find her breaking point, Aaron has resorted to something that goes beyond just shocking — it’s offensive. He’s abused the emotional connection they’ve formed solely to get a reaction, and she isn’t having it.
In long-running horror franchises, the trope of killing off a beloved classic character is one that has been around for years now, to mixed results. While occasionally the audience becomes more invested in the movie, most of the time the audience reaction to this move is negative, as they also feel that their emotional investment in a character has been manipulated for the sake of a cheap reaction.
And yet, despite this moment, Sara opts to stay because of the bond the two have formed, which only continues to grow after that point. A late night conversion in a hot tub brings the two of them even closer together, and by the third act of the film they’ve formed a genuine connection as Sara begins to sympathize with Aaron and understand him on a deeper level.
It is this connection that leads Aaron to believe his “final kill,” a murder suicide between the two of them, is something Sara will agree to. But upon realizing Aaron is truly a serial killer like he’d claimed, she is once again horrified. What follows is a back and forth chase through the woods, eventually ending in Sara burying Aaron alone in the grave he dug for the two of them, presuming him dead.
When taking into account the satirical nature of the rest of the film, it’s hard to believe that a traditional chase scene such as this would manage to stir up any excitement. Yet it succeeds in doing so, creating a suspenseful climax and offering a great ending to the relationship between the two characters.
Ultimately, that very relationship is the reason the climax of the film is able to work so well. Beyond the surface-level scares and attempts to recreate moments, when characters that we truly care about are placed in situations where they fear for themselves or those around them — as opposed to simply trying to recreate the past — we’re able to empathize and fear right along with them. And just as the ending of the film suggests, Sara hasn’t quite escaped Aaron as much as she thinks. Horror fans can never truly separate themselves from those movies we do manage to truly connect with.
There are few movies that manage to comment on today’s horror landscape while still being an effective horror film like Creep 2. It’s a perfect reminder that keeping the audience invested via new, meaningful moments with characters will always be a better way to keep an audience engaged than relying on nostalgia.