By Shannon McGrew
From writers and executive producers of the iconic CREEP horror film franchise, THE CREEP TAPES continues to unravel the mind of a secluded serial killer (Duplass) who lures videographers into his world with the promise of a paid job documenting his life. Unfortunately, as the tape rolls, the killer's questionable intentions surface with his increasingly odd behavior, and the victims will learn they may have made a deadly mistake.
For the release of THE CREEP TAPES, Creepy Kingdom's Shannon McGrew spoke with executive producer, star, and co-writer Mark Duplass and co-writer/director Patrick Brice. During their chat, they discussed everything from balancing horror with humor to the creative freedom of shorter episodes and the dark twists fans can expect.
Thank you both so much for speaking with me today. You've successfully delivered two CREEP films and are now expanding this universe with a series. What inspired the transition from films to series?
Mark Duplass: The initial goal was to make a third CREEP film, but I think we felt pressured to honor the franchise. We came up with a lot of different ideas, and some of them felt like they were exciting but might not be really sustainable for 90 minutes. One day, I had a vision of the closet full of tapes from the first film, and I called Patrick immediately and was like, what about the tapes? We can make these little 30-minute nuggets and get as weird as f**k and not worry about sustaining them for 90 minutes. Patrick immediately said, yes, this is great creatively and functionally.
He was busy directing movies, and I had my other stuff going. We could just run away to a cabin whenever we had four or five free days and bang out an episode, which made it that much more fun. Coming off the set of "The Morning Show" and going to do this are two wildly different creative experiences, and they complement each other very well. Once we had that idea, we were moving quickly.
Patrick Brice: What's great about this is not only is it us having the opportunity to access what got us excited about filmmaking in the first place, making films like, in Mark's case, with his brother, me with my closest friends that I grew up with as teenagers, and that freedom of just running around in the woods and making things up. But in this case, doing it with structure and a framework we created ourselves with the first two movies has been so fun.
While it's hard and definitely its own beast creatively, I think, at least for me, it's a therapeutic experience to be able to do this. Part of why it's therapeutic is that it's hard, that we have to give ourselves the challenge of telling a compelling story under 30 minutes, and that we're also honoring what we've built when it comes to this character and these movies.
What was the approach in crafting each segment, and how difficult was it to do so while trying not to laugh at the ridiculous circumstances in which the characters find themselves?
Mark Duplass: Many of these were parcels of ideas we had for the CREEP 3 movie, and some of them were new ideas that we came up with. Once we set on an idea, we figure out who we will cast. There's no audition process. We try to pick someone that we feel like we know will fit really well with it. Then, we'll write more dialogue if they're not as comfortable with the improvisation. Sometimes, we leave it until we get to set to write things out.
It's not like an average improvised story where you can edit it all together. Because of the found footage format, these have to happen in single takes. We're actually writing, rehearsing, trimming down, and pacing everything up to the moment as it goes. It's quite exhausting, and that's often why we hire filmmakers like Desiree Akhavan in CREEP 2 or Josh Ruben in THE CREEP TAPES. They have a good sense of being able to write, act, and pace up as we go. It all comes together in the moment. It's like playing a jazz standard with a group of people, and it's a little scary. You don't know if it will work, but then it pops in, and you get excited.
Patrick Brice: We were making ourselves laugh the whole time. One of the fun aspects of making these movies is that we are making these adjustments from take to take. Inevitably, once we shoot one of these takes, we all huddle together and watch it on this tiny screen on this camera that we shoot these with, which is, by the way, the same camera that we shot the first movie on. We're still using it like a painter uses a lucky old paintbrush. We are laughing our assess off the entire time, for sure. We're stressed out, and we're having to be very focused, but we're definitely allowing ourselves that sense of childlike play to creep into every single aspect of it.
Mark Duplass: Then we come home at night or in the morning, and I make a big meal for everybody, and we watch whatever's on cable TV. Usually, it's something like Forrest Gump or Dumb and Dumber, and then we write that into the next episode.
Mark, what's the process like to get in the headspace of this character?
Mark Duplass: Honestly, it usually takes me a couple of takes to ramp fully back into it. Patrick's good at reminding me of how to get into it, like a certain cadence, a certain amount of energy, a little bit of heightened mannerisms, these kinds of things, because I'll forget, and then I get back into it. The good news with this character is he's so many different characters. It allows me so much latitude to do lots of different things. Honestly, it's probably the most fun I've ever had and will ever have. You play a long-term character like I do on "The Morning Show" or on "Togetherness," and you've got clearly defined lanes of who that person is, and that's fun to obey, but it's also fun to completely obliterate lanes and do whatever the hell you want.
Do you have a favorite out of the six segments in the first season of THE CREEP TAPES? For me, I loved the "Elliot" segment.
Mark Duplass: It's hard to pick our favorite child, but I will say that for those who are interested in learning more about this character, we plan on dropping small Easter eggs in subsequent seasons about the mythology of how this man became the man that he is. I think the final episode, "Mom (and Albert)," is a good one that relates to that.
Patrick Brice: I love all of them for different reasons, but I love "Mom (and Albert)" because we can go there in more ways than one. I love the first episode, "Mike," cause it's a great re-introduction, or introduction, to the series. You can watch the first episode without watching the movies and understand what you're walking into. I love "Elliot" as well. It's a landscape and a space that I've always wanted to shoot in, taking Mark's character outside the cabin and placing him in a different environment. It was really new and exciting for us and definitely something we want to expand on if we get the chance to do a second season.
THE CREEP TAPES will premiere on Friday, November 15, on Shudder and AMC+. The series will debut with a two-episode premiere, followed by new episodes released weekly on Fridays on both platforms.
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