Creeper

When a group of doctors take a trip out to the Canadian wilderness for some camping and fishing they get terror and death instead of rest and relaxation. Someone is stalking them through the dense forest, and they are miles away from anyone that might be able to offer the slightest bit of help.

As they are killed and maimed the culprit decides to start leaving clues. Armed with no useful knowledge despite the clues the doctors begin turning against each other taking things from bad to worse. As they desperately try to escape the isolated wilderness they remain at the killer's mercy and drop one by one with each death becoming more gruesome.

The Creeper (AKA "Rituals") is reminiscent of Deliverance though it contains a higher body count and a few more gruesome scenes (no rape or hillbillies). It's interesting in that the victims are a group of educated, middle-aged men rather than wild teenagers (which I guess is one reason I equate it to Deliverance).

It boarders on being interesting. The acting is better than I expected. Hal Holbrook shines playing particularly well off Lawrence Dane. I enjoyed their argument over whether to leave the injured man or not. There are scenes of grown men breaking down in tears, fighting amongst themselves, pain and anguish, and soul searching that acting-wise is often done well. I also think the general premise, isolated forest location, hiding of the killer and his motives until the very end, and other horrific elements are largely well done. There is definitely a feeling of tension and terror here.

One big let down/plot hole is the motivation of the killer which is revealed near the end.

**MINOR SPOILERS (highlight to read)**

He obviously has a vendetta specifically against doctors, but we are lead to believe that there is a personal interest here. We are only given the smallest amount of information for why he hates doctors in general but not why he feels the need to terrorize them to death nor why he chose this particular group. Assuming he would have killed any doctor he came across and found himself in the deepest woods with a group of them purely by coincidence we can only speculate how he knew who he was killing without any interaction with them.

**END SPOILERS**

While some of the conflicts are done well later in the movie some of the initial character-building conversations aren't. We start getting information about who some of these guys are in their personal/professional lives but it's either vague, seems unimportant, or comes too early before we've had a chance to establish in our minds who the main characters are going to be. Some of this might be more interesting upon a second viewing since you'll know more about who's who and what kinds of personalities they have.

A huge problem is that the poor technical aspects (which I'll detail more in the buying guide) make it hard to follow some of the action and dialogue. This makes it that much harder to get into the characters, particularly when the scene is too dark to see who's talking, and steals the impact of some of the scenes. The loss of impact is particularly bad at the end where we appear to be getting shots of important, and theoretically revealing things, that we can't see clearly. I didn't realize one guy got cut until later when he was bandaging his leg, and when the killer came into view I wasn't immediately sure who he was supposed to be.

MORALITY:

I'm not sure why this is rated R except that I guess they didn't have a PG13 rating back then (the movie is from the 70's). People die for sure, but even when a scene could or should be bloody it's really not. It's more the suggestion of pain and suffering. However we do get a shot of a severed head (which doesn't look completely convincing) and a guy getting burned alive (though like the bleeding it more about the screaming than seeing him get charred).

There is very little mild strong language and nothing sexual or revealing. One guy suggests homosexuality by saying he hasn't had a boyfriend in a while so maybe that was something that would affect a rating back then.

SPIRITUALITY:

Stalking people is bad!

FINAL THOUGHTS:

I might have enjoyed this movie more if not for the unconvincing motives of the killer and the terrible technical aspects which had me trying to figure out what was going on rather than sitting back to take in the dialogue and action. It might actually be worth checking out if you happen across it, but watch for the quality you're getting.

#Creeper #Rituals