Mark Duplass And Patrick Brice Talk Horror-Comedy ‘Creep’ — Out On Netflix This July

Mark Duplass, indie renaissance man of the aughts, has partnered with up-and-coming director Patrick Brice (Maurice, The Overnight) for the only horror movie you need to see this summer: Creep. A blend of found footage, unsettling buddy comedy, and snuff reality, Creep may very well be the first horror film of its kind to mesh elements of a pitch-black humor while commenting on the heightened paranoia of Craigslist crimes in the digital age.

With only his camera in hand, videographer Aaron (Brice) treks to the mountainous boonies after answering a Craigslist ad from the off-kilter Josef (Duplass), a mysterious man with one hell of a dying wish: to create a video diary for his unborn son. After hearing of Josef’s inoperable tumor, Aaron sees no choice but to help record a day-in-the-life film of his new comrade — plus the first-rate pay is nothing to sneeze at. There’s just one problem: Josef is freaking weird. As the day goes on and we discover the inconsistencies in Josef’s story, we’re in the same frightening situation as Aaron.

Produced by Blumhouse Productions (Paranormal Activity, Insidious) and out on Netflix July 14 (currently available to rent or purchase on iTunes), Creep goes places most comedies won’t and where found-footage horror is too self-referential to venture. I had the opportunity to speak with Brice and Duplass about how the film came to be, the thrill of working from barebones scripts, and why everyone has something in common with Aaron and Josef.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp7tBypjwDo]

Decider: Mark, this is the first time you’re acting as a bonafide villain. What side of yourself did you have to channel to get into the character of Josef?

Mark Duplass: It was frighteningly easy for me to be this guy. It sounds worse than it should to admit this, but there is an element of my personality to Josef. I think there’s an element of everyone’s, which is something we’ve discovered as people are watching the film. People surprisingly connect with him, and it’s that thing that some people identify with. Like, when you walk into a room, you often know how to shuck and jive with the way you behave in order to make things work socially. Same way you change the way you behave around kids: not to freak them out or do something that makes them feel uncomfortable. Josef has that, he just has it to a sociopathic degree. That’s what was really fun to just unleash.

Conversation surrounding Creep likes to label the film as a horror comedy, but not too many people are talking about that super dark turn the film takes or the snuff reality that comes to fruition in the third act. Was it a conscious choice to take the film in that direction?

Patrick Brice: It was part of the evolutionary process of making this film. When Mark and I set out to make it, it was essentially a dark comedy about two sad people forming a connection, or a friendship. It was called Peachfuzz. We took that cut of the film and showed it to friends and other filmmakers to get feedback, and the elements of the movie that people were really connecting to and wanting to see more of were the more terse, tenser, darker elements of the movie. So when we went back and reshot our footage, we were doing that in order to push it more into the horror realm. Then once Jason Blum and Blumhouse became involved, that was definitely our modus operandi from that point on. As we filmed these reshoots and they continued, especially in that last twenty minutes of the movie, we were able to be much more deliberate about incorporating this dark stuff into the movie and going to this dark place. We wanted to rope people in with the love and the comedy and the tense weirdness of the opening of the film and then, hopefully, just throw them for a loop by the end of the movie.

After letting Creep settle in, it eventually hits you that Aaron is just as lonely as Josef despite his surface normalcy. Not to spoil too much for anyone who has yet to see the film, but do you think that’s the reason why Aaron gives Josef the benefit of the doubt time and again?

MD: I’m glad you picked up on that, not everybody does. For us we were really excited about both of these people being incredibly fucked up in their own way. Aaron is in this place where he doesn’t really have any friends, he doesn’t have any life traction, and he’s a loving person who’s interested in people. And Josef is obsessed with Aaron and Aaron is obsessed with being obsessed with, and that’s what keeps him there. That’s what’s really interesting and fascinating to us.

The behind-the-scenes knowledge surrounding your projects, including Creep, are famous for winging it from barebones scripts and outlines. Does that uncertainty ever add another level of stress or pressure to a low-budget production that has to be filmed in a super short time frame?

MD: It certainly can. In my opinion, it’s more freeing to know that we’re going to get what we can get. We’re not going to stick to a script that might have been quickly written, but we’re just going to obey the organic nature of the moment, and what we lose in precision we’ll gain in spontaneity, right? And that’s a worthy trade. In the case of Creep, there was no stress at all. We never were attached to this movie being released. This was an arts and crafts experiment from the beginning. This was the most unprepared we’ve ever been going into a movie — or I’ve ever been — and we just put it together as we went. Then we promised ourselves, if it sucks we just won’t put it out there. So that was very freeing and stress-free. Where the stress does start to come in is when your movie starts testing well and you realize you do have something but it’s not quite there yet. Then you feel the responsibility to make it good, and that’s the point where we brought in Blumhouse as a partner and really employed our smart director friends to help us figure it out. That was a little stressful, but totally worth it.

PB: It’s a manageable stress. It’s the kind of stress that makes your movie better at the end of the day.

Patrick, how was it switching creative gears and jumping from Creep, a horror-comedy, to The Overnight, a romantic comedy?

PB: It’s wonderful. Going from having no tools to a couple of tools, I feel like you’re able to use those new tools much more wisely and deliberately. The way in which we made The Overnight — that was a fully formed script — I was still having conversations with the actors and letting them know that if there were moments that felt emotionally right, they could veer off the script. And we were still making changes to the script on set because, for the most part, we shot in chronological order. So we were really able to be nimble and true to the movie and not force anything. I feel like I gained a lot of confidence in the unknown of Creep going forward — just trusting myself and my ability to be my own harshest critic and to identify and listen to myself when something was working or wasn’t working and then go forward with that.

Mark, after working with Patrick and before him Colin Trevorrow on Safety Not Guaranteed and Charlie McDowell on The One I Love, what is it you love so much about collaborating with first-time feature directors?

MD: It all depends on the situation. Most of these people that I work with are first-time directors, but they’re not young artists. They’ve been developing themselves as artists for a while through film school or having done other things. Like Charlie being an established author, Colin was already a seasoned Hollywood screenwriter, and Patrick had already made a bunch of documentaries and was very downstream as an emotionally evolved person and understood people more so than anyone I know. What’s exciting to me about being first-timers in the director’s chair is they know that I’m giving them a chance that not a lot of other people are going to give them. And they come to it with everything they have as opposed to me hiring a fourth-time director who’s like, “Eh, it’s not a lot of money, I don’t know about my salary… Where’s my trailer?” I get the enthusiasm of youth and the appreciation. That, to me, is a trade I’m willing to make any day of the week for the experience of already having made a film.

In your keynote speech at SxSW earlier this year, you mentioned that up-and-coming filmmakers shouldn’t rule out self-distribution or VOD to help get their movies seen. In contrast, the Coen Brothers at Cannes Film Festival were campaigning against streaming, claiming it’s ruining the filmgoing experience. Why do you think there’s still a stigma associated with having your first or second film screened online rather than in a traditional theater?

MD: I don’t think there is a stigma. I think that it’s totally cool and okay for some people to love 35mm film and to love the theatrical place. I think that honestly, Coen Brothers movies? Their frames are portraits and they’re so gorgeous and so beautiful and there are so many things happening tucked in corners of frames of their movies that should be and can be seen in 35mm format in a large auditorium. And that’s because they’re the Coen Brothers. I would venture to say that’s not the only way to get a movie made. And if you’re a seventeen-year-old kid from Ohio who has no connections and no one knows who you are and you have the opportunity to make an inspired, raw, two-hander film like Creep that isn’t about the precision of cinema and really just about a raw performance and energy and inspiration, you shouldn’t let the Coen Brothers not wanting your movie to be shown online stop you from doing that.

Mark, you’re wrapped up in nearly a dozen projects right now — in film and on TV — do you have any preference as to which medium you’re working in these days?

MD: I like everything that I’m doing and I can say that honestly, which is crazy because I just jettison everything else right now that I don’t love doing. Everything offers me something different. Patrick and I felt like twelve-year-old kids when we’re making Creep together, and when I’m running Togetherness, I feel like the godfather of a clan of a hundred people that I need to carefully maneuver and handle everybody with precision and do it with an immense amount of preparation. Those are two completely different things and they’re each rewarding in their own way.

Creep is currently available on iTunes and will be available to stream on Netflix July 14.

 

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Photos: Blumhouse Productions/Netflix