[The following review contains MAJOR SPOILERS; YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!]
With the possible exception of The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot, Creepy is probably the most accurate title in the history of cinema. That single six-letter adjective describes the pervasively unsettling atmosphere of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 2016 psychological thriller elegantly, economically, and succinctly. Like the director’s own Cure, the film finds horror not in shallow jump scares, grotesque gore effects, or supernatural mischief, but rather in something far more chillingly universal: the nuances of human behavior.
To call the movie’s central antagonist a “serial killer” would be an egregious understatement; that label seems too mundane to apply to his insidious modus operandi. He doesn’t merely butcher his victims’ bodies: he infiltrates their lives, erodes their agency and free will, and unravels their interpersonal relationships. Their minds, spirits, and very identities evaporate long before their flesh expires, reducing them to little more than docile, submissive zombies—obedient (albeit unwitting) accomplices to the psychopath’s sadistic crime spree. Most terrifyingly, it isn't particularly difficult to corrupt them; the oppressive, overwhelming burdens of societal norms and cultural conventions have already irreparably weakened their resolve—their tormentor simply needs to discover and exploit their vulnerabilities, gradually chipping away at their brittle defenses until they finally (inevitably) shatter.
The visual style perfectly complements the story’s underlying themes and conflicts. The protagonist, a former police detective haunted by his catastrophic failure to negotiate a hostage situation in the recent past, copes with his physical and mental trauma by burying himself in his new profession as a college lecturer; beneath his façade of passivity and numb contentment, however, he’s clearly eager to atone for his mistakes—making it relatively easy for an ex-colleague to lure him back into the fold with the promise of an especially baffling missing persons case. As the investigation demands more of his attention (indeed, his “purely academic interest” in the disappearances quickly evolves into an all-consuming obsession), his wife begins to feel increasingly neglected and abandoned; despite her valiant efforts to swallow her misgivings and play the role of a dutiful homemaker and productive member of the local community (though the neighbors tend to be either indifferent or outright hostile, consistently rebuffing her attempts to befriend them), her loneliness, alienation, and isolation remain painfully obvious. Consequently, the couple is frequently framed in claustrophobic, symmetrical, fragmented compositions, the space surrounding them externalizing their repressed anxieties, insecurities, and resentments. The camerawork—which is often so subtle that it borders in subliminal—reinforces this sense of emotional inflexibility; these characters are trapped in private purgatories of their own design—and because the editing implements cuts so sparingly, the audience is forced to suffer alongside them through a series of excruciatingly long, uninterrupted takes, ensnaring subject and viewer alike in an inescapable prison of time.
Ultimately, Creepy closely resembles the murderer around whom its plot revolves: it crawls inside your skull and lingers in your subconscious, refusing to grant you a moment of respite. It’s a deliciously disturbing experience; I savored every unnerving image… but having thus feasted on its rich subtext and complex social commentary, I doubt that I’ll revisit it any time soon.
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