Watching Creep makes me wonder why all of us don’t spend our weekends making movies with our friends. But I know only say this because Brice’s film makes filmmaking seem so effortless. Creep‘s genius is its simplicity.

For those unaware, Creep is a found-footage horror about a videographer named Aaron (Brice) who accepts a job on Craigslist to do a one day shoot at a cabin in the mountains for $1000. It turns out that the job is from a middle-aged man named Josef (Duplass) who tells Aaron that he is dying from a brain tumor and wants to make a video documentary explaining who he is for his soon-to-be-born son. Of course, this all seems innocent enough…at first.

Most found footage films follow a fairly common plot formula: a individual or a crew with a camera set out to document something only to find out that they are in a situation that has spun out of their control. Since the success of The Blair Witch Project, filmmakers have tended to make the horrors of found footage films more supernatural in nature; but Creep upends this tradition by using the genre to make a psychological horror. The situation Aaron finds himself in with Josef feels like it could happen to any of us, and watching Josef spin his manipulative tricks makes you accept why Aaron takes a bit too long to bolt… especially in comparison to other found footage protagonists who clearly witness unexplainable or supernatural event and dismiss it because the movie must continue.

Brice and Duplass, who co-wrote (an improved) the script together, show immense confidence in fact that good dialogue can entertain for a full 77 minutes. In fact, Creep is the only film in The Midnight Selections I would probably ever want to see adapted into a stage play. (Though, on a side note, I once saw Evil Dead 2 adapted into a staged musical, and it was pretty awesome.) Brice and Duplass commit fully to a dance between the too-trusting and the never-should-be-trusted and this leads to a lot of moments of dark, dark humour. But the real entertainment comes from trying to figure out just what makes each of these individuals tick. Yeah, there is clearly something wrong with Josef, but Brice’s Aaron seems like a bit of an oddity as well. The longer the film continues, the less Aaron feels like a relatable everyman in a dangerous situation and the more apparent it is that he is a victim to his own hubris. And yet, I feel like I have come across more than my far share of Aaron’s in my life.

I have no issue including Creep into The Midnight Selections, even after intentionally leaving out other, more popular found footage entries. Duplass’s performance is far above what is mostly found in this genre. The simple concept is also executed with considerable skill. (There is a four-minute scene with just audio that is particularly demented.) And in the end, you just can’t help but feel that a film of this quality, made on such a low budget, could only had been made by two guys who really, really love cinema.

And the sequel is surprisingly good too.