Dir. Matt Sampere (2024)
After a group of kids steal from a neighbor's doorstep on Halloween, a vengeful spirit is unleashed that threatens to get its revenge by claiming their souls.
There's something so magical about this time of year for horror fans. Movies released around Spooky Season tend to be more horror in nature, but it's always a little extra thrilling to get a movie that doesn't just fit within the horror genre but is an actual Halloween movie. Ya know... pumpkins, orange leaves, trick-or-treating. The film itself is tailored around the holiday, providing the perfect atmosphere for a movie that you can curl up and watch on a cold October night.
Tim (Matt Sampere, who also wrote and directed the film) has always loved Halloween, but after his mother Linda's (Monique Parent) recent diagnosis of brain cancer, he's not in the holiday mood. When he's stuck taking care of his mom on Halloween night, he gets a visit from a group of friends who stole a mysterious sack from a neighbor's doorstep. This, of course, unwittingly releases a malevolent spirit that wreaks havoc on the town, a misstep that threatens to kill every last one of Tim's friend group before the night is through. They must find a way to vanquish the spirit before it seeks its revenge.
Featuring some gnarly kills and a fantastic Spooky Season aesthetic, Creeping Death is funny at times and gory at others, a fully indie supernatural slasher with an excellent idea that isn't always fully fleshed out. The acting leaves a lot to be desired from many in the cast, but it's a highly entertaining film that doesn't really push for deeper evaluation. It's campy and overly serious all at once, with Halloween pranks interspersed with scenes of a young man caring for his rapidly deteriorating mother. It's a but uneven as a result, but that's not to say there's not a lot of fun to be had here.
Sampere has a great plot here that really plumbs into the history and origins of All Hallow's Eve and Samhain, and the summoned Aos Sí, a Gaelic demon who is appeased with a sacrifice on Halloween, is terrifyingly well done. Creeping Death is a film that begs for a larger budget and a little bit more filmmaking knowhow, however, as it struggles at times with lighting issues (and the aforementioned wooden performances). Nevertheless, Sampere does a passable job in creating a movie that will greatly appeal to horror fans while introducing an excellent villain that makes the film worth a watch regardless of its shortcomings.
The great thing about films like this is that none of the place where the film struggles will even be an issue for most of the people who were drawn to it in the first place. It's not like it's the first horror film you've seen with bad acting, nor will it be in the top ten of films that are hard to make out in the darkness. All you need to make a good horror film is a good idea, and Sampere has that here. Creeping Death delivers plenty of holiday atmosphere with some decent scenes of bloody destruction, a perfect fit for Screambox and their Halloween offerings for horror fans. It's far from a perfect movie, but it's a fun watch for Spooky Season, and you can't really ask for a whole lot more than that.
Who this movie is for: Halloween fans, Holiday horror devotees, Samhain historians
Bottom line: Creeping Death is a fun film that struggles at times with elevating itself beyond what it eventually becomes. It's a good story, though, and it's got some excellent gore that horror fans will really enjoy. Sampere clearly has some real potential as a storyteller, and while his debut feature is not without its flaws, it's an entertaining watch nonetheless. This isn't going to be a film you're going to continually revisit, but it's definitely worth a watch this Halloween. It's streaming on Screambox September 10th.
