Creepy (2016)
Directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa
After having narrowly escaped an attempt on his life at the hands of a psychopath, detective inspector Takakura quits active service in the police force and takes up a position as a university lecturer in criminal psychology. But his desire to get to the bottom of criminals’ motives remains, and he does not hesitate long when former colleague Nogami asks him to reopen an old case.
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13 films that influenced Creepy
What critics say influenced Creepy
We have the theme of the neighbour under suspicion that underlies Rear Window; and the family member who isn’t what he appears to reflect Joseph Cotton’s Uncle Charlie in Shadow of a Doubt.
We have the theme of the neighbour under suspicion that underlies Rear Window; and the family member who isn’t what he appears to reflect Joseph Cotton’s Uncle Charlie in Shadow of a Doubt.
His wife, Yasuko (Yûko Takeuchi, "Ringu"), is anxious to make friends with the neighbors, but Mrs. Tanaka says she and her moaning, bedridden mother 'don't associate with people around here.'
Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa made a splash in the late 1990s/early 2000s, when U.S. audiences were introduced to J-horror by movies like Hideo Nakata's influential Ringu.
Like the former, he draws on a fascination with evil (one can imagine Lang’s masterpieces M and The Testament Of Dr. Mabuse remade as Kurosawa movies), and like the latter, he merges the macabre and the everyday in a way that unsettles feelings about both.
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In its final section, the film begins to resemble one of those gruesome shockers that Takashi Miike used to make in the late 1990s, for example, Audition.
There’s a hint of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo in Kurosawa’s approach to his material, with the swooping camera work and eerie, orchestral score.
Not since “Bad Boy Bubby” has plastic wrap been put to such scary use on screen as it is in “Creepy,” Kiyoshi Kurosawa ’s nail-biting thriller dominated by a psychopath who exerts a malevolent hold on his neighbors.
Like most notorious “hunt for a serial lunatic” films, from Seven to The Silence of the Lambs, Creepy maps out the intersection where good intentions and naive moralizing collide with pure evil, though this description suggests a movie of much greater velocity.
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Ostensibly a sleek investigative thriller, Creepy later takes a detour into macabre and surreal territory, returning to the outré register of Kurosawa films such as Pulse and Charisma, following his recent, gently emotive take on the supernatural, Journey to the Shore.
Produciton designer Norifumi Ataka (“Norwegian Wood,” Kurosawa’s “The Seventh Code”) captures Tokyo suburban life with impressive verisimilitude, and with dirt and ugliness unceremoniously accumulating around the corners.