Creep Creepersins' Frankenstein (2009)
Label: MVD VisualRegion: Region 0 NTSC
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 54 mins
Video: 16x9 Widescreen
Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Director: Creep Creepersin
Cast: James Porter, Nicole Nemeth, Kelly Kingsbury, Mrs. Creep, Creep Creepersin
Tagline: Some Men Make Monsters, Victor Just Wanted A Friend
Film: Creep Creepersin's Frankestein is a character study of Victor (James Porter), a painfully awkward guy in his 40's who lives alone in a rural house where it would seem he spends nearly every waking hour watching one of those 100 pack Mill Creek classic horror collections for we only ever see him watch are films of the public domain variety. There he sits in the flickering glow of cathode tube with his only friend in all the world, a rat named Frankenstein. When he's not watching horror he's eating his preferred food of choice, scrambled eggs while looking at nudie magazine. I imagine this is how Harry Knowles started out in life. Knowles would be the exception to the rule though cuz not every weirdo with a stack of nudie mags and a Mill Creek boxset ends up creating Ain't It Cool News. Some just get weirder and weirder until one day they snap while watching Frankenstein and the next thing you know you're receiving transmissions from the TV and being haunted by your dead mother. Suddenly, not unlike Angela Bettis in Lucky McKee's May, your thinking "I'll just make a friend" and before you know it you're not an internet geek-king at all but a demented killer along the lines of Ed Gein with a woman's corpse on your couch covered in marker-drawn stitches. Sure, she's dead but you talk to her anyway cause you're fucked in the head but guess what, even she thinks you're a fucking loser, ain't that a bitch?
Okay, know going in this is a micro-budgeted slice of outsider cinema and the production values are pretty low. The shots aren't particularly well composed and the editing is mighty rough. On top of that even for a 54 minute film it's painfully slow at times, you're just hanging there waiting for something to happen and when it does your just confounded. Those public domain horror films I mentioned earlier are intercut throughout the film also. It's an effective way to create atmosphere but after a certain point it obvious the film clips we're being used to pad out the films running time when in fact I think the film would have been much better suited to a 40 minute short film. There's easily 15 minutes of footage here that could have been excised without altering the film's storyarc.
The acting like everything else about the film is amateur hour but James Porter as Victor does have a few moments that convey the deep seated psychological issue he's suffering but those are fleeting as the overacting takes the character towards the full retard end of the spectrum, and you never go full retard, am I right or am I right?
DVD: Creep Creepersin's Frankenstein is presented in 16x9 widescreen. This production looks exactly like the shot on consumer grade digital video in two days that it is. It looks pretty damn rough all around and it's not particularly well lit or shot either. It's a debut film from an inexperienced cast and crew, ain't no hiding that fact. Unless your a connoisseur of no-budget outsider cinema this is gonna be a tough watch no doubt about it. Supplemental material includes the sprawling 38 minute making of documentary 'A Test of Our Own Stupidity: The Making of Frankenstein' that looks even worse than the feature and three trailers for the film.
Special Features:
- A Test of Our Own Stupidity: The Making of Frankenstein (35:21)
- Teaser Trailer 1 (0:52)
- Teaser Trailer 2 (0:44)
- Trailer (2:17)
Verdict: Not exactly an auspicious debut for director Creep Creepersin to be sure but there are some interesting dark tidbits floating around here, it's an interesting take on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein but it's unfocused and jumbled and better done in the aforementioned May. Creepersin just doesn't have the resources or experience at this point in his career to pull it all together into a completely watchable film. You never know though, in twenty five years we could be looking back at this a classic of outsider cinema like Sledgehammer but it's doubtful. Creepersin's surreal psychological thriller He (2009) and the office slasher The Corporate Cut Throat Massacre (2010) are on deck here at the Mausoleum so we'll soon see if the director's grown any since his debut feature film. 1.5 outta 5
