Director: Patrick Brice
Screenplay: Mark Duplass and Patrick Brice
Starring: Mark Duplass
Country: United States
Year: 2024
Last year, I covered Second Sight’s release of the indie found footage horror film Creep here at Blueprint: Review. It’s a film that I mostly enjoyed, although I had a handful of issues with the horror aspects, absolutely adoring the lead performance by Mark Duplass as the titular character, blending awkward humour and unsettling character quirks in a way that outshined everything else in the film itself.
A couple of years after making Creep, Mark Duplass and director Partrick Brice reunited for a sequel, Creep 2 which improved on some elements, but mostly retained some of the same issues in terms of lacklustre jumpscares holding down an otherwise great performance vehicle. After the two films, it went radio silence on the Creep front, until late last year, when The Creep Tapes was announced, an original Shudder miniseries, focused on six short standalone episodes following Mark Duplass as he terrorises a handful of people in typical Peachfuzz fashion. Excited by the prospect of a different avenue for the Creep franchise, I knew I had to cover it for Blueprint: Review.
Consisting of six episodes, all running for 25/30 minutes a piece, The Creep Tapes is an utterly delightful time. While the two films worked well at delivering great moments of character work, the overreliance on long, drawn out horror setpieces that’d traditionally end in a jumpscare didn’t do much for me, so having these bite sized encounters where there’s more of an emphasis on the zany, darkly comedic aspects of Mark Duplass as a performer ended up being right up my alley.
Each episode focuses on a different character, such as the first episode, following an aspiring filmmaker who takes up an online ad to star in a film with Jeff Daniels (not that one!), before things begin turning more sinister. Still, throughout the episode, there’s plenty of absurdist humour, such as a recreation of the classic film Misery that had me losing my mind.
The second episode, focusing on Mark’s character pretending to be a skydiver who ends up harassing a bird watcher is another great time, blending the horror and humour well and also highlighting how the show isn’t afraid to switch up and play around with the structure of what we’ve come to expect from Creep so far. After that, there’s an episode where Mark’s Creep impersonates a religious man, toying with a deeply religious individual throughout quite a chaotic night, screaming about his love for God’s Not Dead in a particularly hilarious monologue.
The episode with my favourite premise is probably the fourth, where director Josh Ruben plays a filmmaker who’s torn between calling the police or making a true crime documentary after Mark Duplass greets him to a dead body, with no information on how the person died. It’s ridiculous, bizarre and probably offers the most compelling mystery for a protagonist, while delivering some of the funniest moments in the entire series. It’s a great time.
Episode five switches things up again, showing the prep that the Creep goes into before toying with his next subject, which results in him dealing with his relationship with alternate personality, Peachfuzz. It’s set entirely in a motel room and is quite the departure from the other episodes, standing out as another highlight. He goes full Green Goblin mode in this one, it’s incredible.
The final episode continues to surprise, giving us some backstory into the Creep’s origin, with the episode focusing on his mother, in another bizarre, strange and hilarious episode. His mother’s played by Krisha Fairchild (star of Trey Edward Schults’ Krisha) in a delightfully entertaining performance.
As it stands, The Creep Tapes is easily my favourite thing to come out of the Creep universe, offering smaller scale, but more memorable encounters without any unnecessary padding. There’s still jumpscares, don’t get me wrong, but I feel like they’re less egregious given how little they take up of the runtime compared to the films. It’s an absolute showcase for Mark Duplass once again, and I feel like Patrick Brice as a filmmaker feels more comfortable experimenting with the found footage format, especially after the fairly traditional filmmaking presented in the films.
If you’re a fan of the Creep films or, like me, wanted something more from them, delving into the absurdist dark comedy, while still delivering scares, uncomfortable tension and of course, more Mark Duplass, The Creep Tapes is a must watch. With the recent news that a second season has been greenlit, I can’t wait to see what gonzo concepts Duplass and Brice continue to come up with. Check it out!
Season One: 
The Creep Tapes released on Blu-ray and DVD via Acorn Media/Shudder on May 12th. I viewed the Blu-ray and it looked pretty solid. If you’ve viewed the Second Sight Blu-ray for Creep, you should know what to expect from the visual style of the show.
The following extras are included.
Shudder Social Q&A with Mark Duplass & Patrick Brice
Filmmaker Commentary
The filmmaker commentaries included throughout each of the episodes are fun, engaging listens that offer a similar experience to the commentary tracks that were included on Second Sight’s Creep release. They dive into the technical, nitty gritty aspects of the production while still offering some fun anecdotes about the shoots and the jump from the films to a television series. A good set of listens that’ll please fans.
The Shudder Q&A runs for a minute and it’s pretty disappointing as an extra. There’s very little of note or substance here and is essentially a YouTube short/TikTok, as opposed to an actual extra.
Packaging wise, it’s the typical Shudder affair, a standard Blu-ray release with their typical branding included, it’ll look great on the shelf with other Shudder releases!
The Blu-ray release for The Creep Tapes is an alright one, light on extras but the episodes themselves more than make up for it. It’s a great time, but don’t expect something on the same level as what Second Sight did for their release of the first film and you won’t be too disappointed. A must watch show with a fine home media release.
Disc/Packaging: