The Creep Tapes 2

‘Peachfuzz’ is back with a bang for Season 2 of the found footage horror franchise, once again taking on various personas and names in order to lead unassuming victims to their grisly demises. While peppered with the twisted and deranged humour one can expect from our Super-CREEP, it’s by and large an excercise in ultimately pointless sadism, with various guest stars waiting in the wings to be slaughtered.

Mark Duplass, who co-wrote the latest six episodes together with director Patrick Brice, clearly relishes his ‘Peachfuzz’ alter-ego (real name Josef). The premise is the same as in the previous CREEP TAPES release, with viewers (that’s us) given the opportunity to take a look at various tapes, all of which hold recordings of Peachfuzz’ dastardly deeds.

Episode 1 (‘Joseph’) sees David Dastmalchian (who gave a terrific performance as TV talk-show host Jack Delroy in the excellent ‘Late Night With the Devil’) as copycat killer Joseph who, after having watched footage of the real Creep on the dark-web, places an ad online. He’s looking for a videographer to record him for a day and who should respond? Correct, it’s the real Josef, assuming the very role played by Aaron in the first Creep Tapes film. Initially on to a promising start, Josef soon grows frustrated with copycat killer Joseph’s amateurish attempts and soon he lets the cat out of the bag and introduces himself as the real Josef, oh oh! Now it’s only a question of coming up with a suitable idea to make Joseph feel like the worthless ‘amateur’ that he is - trust Peachfuzz to turn the table in a devilish way… It’s as deadpan as it gets, though unless he appears as a completely different character in a future Creep Tapes release, sadly there’s little chance of David Dastmalchian returning.

Episode 2 (‘Wes’) is so deranged, it’s actually quite funny because it’s primarily based on playing mind games. Here, Duplass slips into the persona of real estate agent Trip Engold who places an ad looking for a cameraman (does this sound familiar?). The job involves shooting a TV-pilot for a house flipping show (trust the Yanks to turn pretty much everything into a TV-show) hosted by, you guessed it, Mr. Engold. Wes (Diego Josef) is the unfortunate lad who happens to answer the ad and when Engold drives him into the forest (does this sound familiar, too?) Wes, understandably, gets a little twitchy. Before he can shout “Wrong turn!” he realises the situation, jumps out of the car and begins to run. Fast! Unfortunately, Engold runs faster, catches up with him, hits him over the head with a shovel and intends on packing him into the trunk of Wes’ car. Talk about timing, because he gets interrupted by two patrolling police officers who rightly become suspicious when they spot Wes lying on the ground, wrapped in a plastic sheet, while Engold tries to convince them that this was the deed of a dangerous killer still loose somewhere in the nearby woods. What follows is a psychological cat-and-mouse game between Engold and the two officers and as sick as it is, it’s also funny.

Episode 3 (‘Mark’) is a case of mistaken identity in which our popular killer (Duplass) feels incredibly inspired by both the SAW movies and TV-Series DEXTER. Well, we didn’t assume he would be inspired by Walt Disney films! After having set up a state-of-the art underground escape room, he proceeds to kidnap his first victim (Robert Longstreet) but shock horror, after the kidnapped man turns out to be extraordinarily dim-witted and incapable of solving any puzzles, Killer realises that he has kidnapped the wrong guy. Wait and see what happens next…

Episode 4 (‘Ava’) has got to be the most bonkers of the lot! Here, Duplass takes on the persona of David, a man apparently running an animal shelter. Young Ava (Taylor Garron) can’t believe her luck when she is hired to film a promo-video at said animal shelter and dreams of making a profitable docu, with David a figure very much like American media personality Joe Exotic (who operated the Greater Wynnewood Exotic Animal Park in Oklahoma). Unfortunately, David turns out to be a right old nut job, who not only has serious issues when it comes to cooking food (both plants and animals) and thus eats his veggies raw, but the animals in his shelter are carved little figurines - wooden miniature replicas of previous deceased animals. Trust Mark Duplass to come up with a concept like that! As he steers more and more towards a mental breakdown (we know he’s only pretending), Ava keeps on pushing him further and further in the hope he might reveal the reason why he’s so traumatised when it comes to cooking food. Sometimes though, curiosity can kill…

Episode 5 (‘Nick’) offers seasonal fare with a sick twist, naturally! Here, a somewhat disturbed but otherwise harmless man named Nick Green (Timm Sharp) arranges for an emergency therapy session on Christmas Eve (as you do) due to apparent ‘Dady issues’ he suffers from. What Nick doesn’t know is that his new therapist, who is supposed to be a Dr. Avison (Jody Lambert), is as dead as a doornail - murdered by therapist Mark Duplass. Now, the imposter shrink attempts to get to the bottom of things regarding Nick’s ‘daddy issues’ but it goes without saying that it’s not before long until things take a sinister turn… Enter spiked Yule eggnogs (soy nog in this case) and a little homage to the Christmas horror GREMLINS. Merry Christmas!

Finally, Episode 6 (‘Angela’) is over the top funny and although there’s a murder taking place, it’s surprisingly subtle by Mark Duplass standards! Main character here is Angela (Katie Aselton), who is visited by estranged ‘family member’ Josef (Duplass) after she blackmailed him into dropping by. This she managed by calling him and threaten to report him to the police due a murder he committed. It should be pointed out that Angela is under house arrest (apparently) and wears an ankle monitor. She’s clearly mentally unstable but more to the point, she’s an alcoholic and when Josef accuses her of squandering money away he regularly sends to help her out financially, it transpires that in her befuddled state of mind, she seems to think Josef is her estranged husband and the money he sends is put to good use by purchasing various blenders used to mix her highly alcoholic concoctions. Angela, dressed in garish pink gowns, is of the belief that the third blender was in fact a wedding present from Josef, to which he replies that the only time they got ‘married’ was in a silly High School ceremony. Nonetheless, Angela is adamant to get ‘hubby’ back and her plan involves seducing him in her swimming pool, during which she ends up topless and manages to strip Josef of his undies - much to our amusement and to his embarrassment. I won’t say how the saga ends but it’s a riot.

Once again, Mark Duplass has proven his talent for humour (or twisted humour more to the point) and that’s absolutely needed, given the usual brutality of the killings - even though it’s tongue n cheek. Still, the point remains how much further Duplass can take this formula in the next installation(s) of the CREEP TAPE franchise, without running danger of repeating the same old same old.

THE CREEP TAPES - Season 2 has just been released on Blu-ray and Bonus material includes a Commentary by Mark Duplass, Patrick Brice and Chris Donlon.