I’m a Creep, I’m a weirdo…

Although Creep (2014) is billed as a horror movie, many of its fans would sooner describe it as an example of cringe comedy with a tinge of horror mixed in. The found-footage film follows a videographer, Aaron, tasked with filming the life of a stranger who invites him into his home. Aaron soon notices that his client, Josef, is behaving increasingly erratically, and is going off the social ‘script’ as Alexandra Plakias would describe it. Josef begins to share overly intimate details about himself, and even has Aaron film him in the bathtub.

Plakias writes that “[awkwardness] might happen because a situation is so novel that there isn’t a social script to guide us through it” and that this can result in awkward social interactions or even awkward silences. In Creep, awkwardness and cringe-humor arises from Josef’s bizarre behavior and Aaron’s utter confusion as to how to respond – he has likely never encountered such an individual before and has zero precedent for how to conduct himself.

Josef from Creep can be compared to the character of the cable guy from the 1996 film that Sianne Nagi writes about. She writes that the cable guy: “…takes the simulation of intimacy expected at access points too literally, making increasingly aggressive efforts to be his client’s friend”. Josef and Aaron have a similarly transactional relationship, where Aaron is being paid to take video of Josef. However, Josef begins to force an intimacy between the two men, creating incongruity and awkwardness and becoming ‘zany’ in the process.

Nagi claims that ‘zanies’ “…tend to be paired with or against other agents: often a minder…although the chaotic nature of the style often makes it unclear exactly who is minding whom”. This is true in the case of Josef who is paired with Aaron, the wielder of the camera and thus a stand-in for how a ‘normal’ person would behave or react. However, the chaotic found-footage style of the film makes us question the actions of both characters.

The particular scene I have chosen is kind of creepy, but is mostly funny due to the awkwardness/cringe of the situation. Aaron yells at Josef to stop what he is doing (wearing a wolf mask and growling) but instead Josef is silent which creates awkward pauses. The scene might be more ‘horror’ if Josef began chasing Aaron with a knife, but the awkwardly silent way he slowly dances and undulates his body while Aaron reprimands him to ‘stop it!!!’ is too strange, too inviolate of the social contract, and too socially awkward to ignore its humorous value.