The Creep Behind the Camera (2014)

Powerful

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

I'd seen THE CREEPING TERROR included in numerous box sets of trash drive in/exploitation/horror films including some I own but never really got around to watching it. When I heard Synapse was releasing this film it got my curiosity up. With the real film I'm not sure that's a good thing, with the semi-documentary of the making of the film it was interesting.The original film tells the story of a young couple on their way home from their honeymoon. Martin is a sheriff who is soon faced with trying to battle an outer space alien intent on devouring the occupants of the town he protects. Simple enough story, terrible presentation. To begin with the monster itself looks exactly like what it is, a carpet covered framework that inspires more laughs or head scratching than actual terror. Then there is the acting, if you can call it that. In the end the movie looks like it's trying to vie for worst film ever and making Ed Wood look great. The film is presented in blu-ray format though and being included with the main film makes it something to examine after watching that.Now, THE CREEP BEHIND THE CAMERA. What we have here is part documentary part biographical film, a combination to tell the story of the man behind THE CREEPING TERROR, Art "A.J." Nelson aka Vic Savage. And what a story it is.Nelson was at best a con man and at worst one of the most inept movie directors to ever put story to film. He was a sleaze of the highest order, a liar who felt that no matter what he said people would buy it, a man who lied to himself as much as he did to others. He romances a young woman and gets her to leave her home only to abuse her and sleep with other women in front of her.As the story progresses Nelson continues to tell people he wants to make the greatest movie monster film ever made with the most terrifying monster on screen filmed to date. But he squanders the money investors provide and gives them back footage which is unintelligible and nonsensical with things that don't match from one scene to the next. Though it all he believes he is making something special.A tyrannical director prone to yelling and attacking his crew, he forces the men inside the monster costume to work under deplorable conditions to the point they pass out from the heat inside of it. He short changes the effects manager who takes the costume back and then steals if from him. He hires "actresses" based on their willingness to go to bed with him rather than ability. His abuses of both those around him and of his own body end up coming back to haunt him.Rather than a rags to riches movie about how a poor boy makes good in Hollywood we're instead presented with a tale of poor boy gets money and goes from bad to worse. The fact that Nelson has no more than two titles with his name attached on IMDb says a lot. His story offers little for make you feel sympathy for him but tons for those whose lives he touched.The film is well made with a great combination of interviews mixed with actors portraying the events that took place. Josh Phillips as Nelson does a great job to the point you end up wanting to punch him once the final credits roll. Jodi Lynn Thomas as his long suffering wife who must learn to stand up for herself does a great job here as well. The end result is a movie that surpasses the original film by miles.Even the extras that Synapse has included here are better than the movie Nelson shot. Extras include a 2k restoration of the original film, audio commentary with director Pete Schuerann, producer Nancy Theken and stars Phillips and Thomas, a making of featurette, HOW TO BUILD A CARPET MONSTER, BREAKING DOWN ART'S DEATH SCENE, MONSTER MOVIE HOMAGES, "One Mick to Another" with Byrd Holland and Allan Silliphant, deleted scenes, an alternate endings, Screamfest Black Carpet Q&A with Frank Conniff, the original theatrical trailer and THE CREEPING TERROR Screamfest promotional trailer.While the original film might provide a night of laughs the new movie will offer something completely different. It will entertain and frighten at the same time. And it will leave you wondering how anyone could have believed the tales that Nelson told.

The Creep Behind the Camera (2014)*** (out of 4) THE CREEPING TERROR is considered by many to be one of the very worst films ever made. THE CREEP BEHIND THE CAMERA tells the story of its making. We meet Art Nelson (Josh Phillips) who is your typical con man who decides that he wants to break into show business. He finds someone willing to put up the money and he sets out to make the greatest monster movie ever made but falls well short.THE CREEP BEHIND THE CAMERA apparently started off as a regular documentary on the making of THE CREEPING TERROR but somewhere along the way they decided to do much more than that. This film is pretty uneven and a bit all over the place but there's no question that it's very well-made and features some great performances. Part of it is a documentary on THE CREEPING TERROR as we get interviews with many of the cast and crew. The other part of this is a re-enactment or actual film about its director who is best known as Vic Savage.To be honest, I wish this thing had been two separate movies because when you mix an actual documentary with an actual film it just doesn't quite work as well as it could have. I really loved the B&W interviews with the original cast and crew but sadly there's not too much of this. I would have really enjoyed seeing these interviews put together in the form of a featurette to where we could have gotten to hear more of their stories about what it was like on the set of THE CREEPING TERROR. I'm sure there were many more crazy stories that could have been told but instead we get the re-enactment stuff.As far as that goes, it seems the main goal of this movie was to show you what an evil person Vic Savage was. Throughout the re-enactment footage we get clips of him physically, mentally and sexually abusing his wife. We learn that he liked nine-year-old girls and we learn that he was a druggie, a loser and just not a very good person. Whenever that isn't happening we get behind-the-scenes footage of them making THE CREEPING TERROR. Again, this re-enactment footage makes for a great film but then you've got the previously mentioned B&W clips from the real people commenting. I just don't think the two went well together but separately they work.I will add that I thought Phillips was extremely good in the lead role and that Jodi Lynn Thomas was also excellent in her part of the wife. Bill LeVasseur and Brian McCulley are also very good as are the rest of the supporting cast. THE CREEP BEHIND THE CAMERA is certainly flawed and somewhat uneven but at the same time I give the filmmakers credit for trying to do something different.

Look, maybe it's not important that the story of "The Creeping Terror" is told with historical accuracy, but some of this movie is not only exaggerated for laughs, it's a lot of nonsense. Charles Manson was in Prison and had not come to California yet when "The Creeping Terror" was filmed. I was hoping this would be a well researched film which actually told the true story of the making of the film.

I caught this movie at a local screening in Colorado Springs when out with the wife. It was a spur of the moment decision that we were very happy to have made. The Creep Behind the Camera details the story of a low-life film director that essentially conned a small town into making one of the worst horror films ever made, "The Creeping Terror". What caught us by surprise was the way the narrative was told. It wasn't a typical documentary as it was filmed almost entirely as a re- telling/remake/reenacting/documentary hybrid that was extremely effective in absorbing us into the story. The character arc for Mr. Nelson was extremely captivating and very intense. The actors' performances were also spectacular. All around, The Creep Behind The Camera was a fantastic dark comedy, high in production quality, thoroughly captivating, and left us with a huge impression on Colorado Springs' local filmmaking scene.