"Creeping Death" (2023)

by Joseph Perry and Mike Imboden

In our “The Good, the Bad, and the Verdict” film reviews, Joseph and Mike give their thoughts on a slice of cinema. For this installment, it’s the Halloween set, supernatural slasher, Creeping Death by writer/director/producer/editor/star Matt Sampere.

Synopsis

Halloween was always Tim’s (Sampere) favorite holiday — until his mother was diagnosed with cancer. Now, all he wants is a quiet night in. That is quickly disrupted when his friends — Tramer (Ian Brown), Isaac (K Cody Hunt), Danielle (Delian Lincourt), Nate (Hunter Kohl), and PJ (Elise St John) — pay him an unwanted visit after stealing a mysterious sack from the doorstep of a local crazy. This sacrilegious act unleashes the Aos Si (Alan Maxson), a Celtic spirit that walks the Earth on Halloween. They must band together and survive the night or make the ultimate offering . . . their lives.

The Good

Joseph: Wearing as many hats as Sampere does here usually leads to a filmmaker not having someone in his ear giving advice, such as editing matters down to a reasonable length or taking out some elements that don’t add anything to the proceedings. Sampere does a rather admirable job here, though, keeping things flowing at a decent pace for the film’s relatively lean 95 minutes. It’s a nice stab at employing the origins of Halloween with a supernatural creature feature. The Aos Si looks pretty cool

Mike: Mixing themes of grief and love, Creeping Death delivers a rather somber look at GBV’s favorite holiday, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

There are some fairly impressive practical effects involving lots of guts and entrails being slopped around, a couple of naked boobs, an effectively creepy and scary looking antagonist, and the requisite jerk who you hope gets killed in a particularly gruesome manner by said antagonist. In short, Sampere delivers an entertaining ode to old-school Halloween horrors

The Bad

Joseph: Creeping Death walks an interesting line, too heavy in the terminal disease drama to be considered wholly “fun” and too light at times, whether intentionally or not — watch for a scene involving a cookie sheet straight out of the oven cool enough to hold with bare hands but holding cookies so hot they burn the mouth — to be taken wholly seriously. If we had a category of “The So-so,” it would be more fitting for this film than “The Bad” — for example, the acting has performances that range from the corny to the pretty good, the lighting and color palette aren’t awful but they tend to be on the drab side, and the story is interesting enough although it serves up many a trope.

Mike: Wearing as many hats as Sampere does here in his debut feature can sometimes result in an impressive blast of a home run. Unfortunately, the ball lands on the warning track here with Creeping Death. Uneven acting across the board (good from some, horrible from others), a somewhat muddled thematic message, a continuity error or two, and some suspect dialogue all come together to stop the film from being the stronger film it might have been with a few more eyes and hands in a few of the roles Sampere loads onto his own back.

The Verdict

Joseph: If you’re in the mood for some Halloween-themed viewing sporting the eighties trifecta of stalk ‘n’ slay, practical effects gore, and bare breasts, Creeping Death has you covered. Sampere cut his directorial teeth on shorts before this debut feature, and he knows how to deliver a fear-fare feature that entertains on a limited budget. I’m interested in seeing what he comes up with next, and I can recommend this outing for some throwback Halloween viewing.

Mike: Despite its fair share of faults, Creeping Death still manages to be a rather effective entry into the Halloween horror catalog. Strong aspects such as the overall story about a Celtic spirit looking for its yearly Hallow’s eve tribute, and some effective practical effects push back some of the weaker parts (acting and some dialogue), to just barely nudge this into the recommended category. Going back to the baseball analogy from ‘The Bad’ section, a double might not be a homerun, but it can still score your team a couple of runs.