Creep Van (2012)

Admirable film.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

When a film features a cameo from Troma head honcho Lloyd Kaufman there's a pretty high chance that it'll be very dumb, and it's almost as likely that it will be a low-budget crap-fest. Lloyd has a cameo in Creep Van. 'Nuff said.But as dumb and as crap as this cheapo horror film undeniably is, I still had a reasonable amount of fun with it thanks to the inventive and rather graphic gore and a fair amount of female nudity (where there's Kaufman, there's usually a naked chick or three not very far away).Creep Van stars Brian Kolodziej as Campbell Jackson, a loser who sorely needs a car of his own in order to improve his job prospects. For the time being, he takes work at a car wash, where he meets Amy (Amy Wehrell), whom he takes an instant shine to. Keen to get himself some wheels, Campbell rings and enquires about a van he sees for sale, unaware that the owner of said vehicle is a homicidal maniac who has fitted the van with all kinds of deadly booby traps.Starting with a cool gore effect where a thief is bisected by the van's window, this film is loaded with enthusiastic splatter, making it a passable watch despite a terrible script and lots of lousy acting (Lloyd Kaufman gives one of the better performances, which should give you some idea of how bad everyone is).Other juicy moments include a tough girl cut in half by the van, a chick in a bikini (played by porn-star Angelina Armani) having her head crushed, two of Campbell's friends being splattered while having sex, a guy's face mashed by an air bag full of nails, and a great death scene for the van's deranged owner.I don't really want to make a habit of recommending Troma movies, but if you're in the mood for some seriously trashy entertainment then Creep Van might just about fit the bill.

Campbell Jackson (Brian Kolodziej) is a 20-something, unemployed misfit in Detroit. Forced to take a dead-end position at a local car wash, Campbell sees a dilapidated 1970s van for sale... but this is no ordinary van -- it is the creep van! We start the film with a character remarking that "only bad people own vans". I love that, as I think it is a widely-held sentiment. The featured van here, a Ford Econoline, is popularly known as a "rape van" (or "creep van" in this case). I am glad someone took the idea and ran with it.Well played to Robert Hall on effects. Almost Human does some great work, and this film is no exception. At one point, we see a person who has lost their face. This is an excellent example of top-notch gore from these guys.In cameos we have Angelina Armani (Hall's girlfriend) and Troma legend Lloyd Kaufman. That was a nice touch. The film as a whole has a nice, light-hearted approach to horror that I appreciate, and there is one scene that takes what could have been gratuitous sex and makes it actually entertaining in a non-sexual way.Great horror film? Maybe not. But they knew what they wanted to do, did not try to go beyond their means, and pulled it off. I would take more films like "Creep Van" over the majority of the horror out there any day.

A down on his luck guy who cant afford a car starts a new job as a car washer, meanwhile a creepy van and its owner kill various people who are, for the part, unrelated to the storyline. There's your plot right there.I actually was going to rent this from Red box, but thankfully never got around to it. Now that it's available on Netflix Streaming means that I don't have to lament a waisted dollar. This film was bad and not in the fun 'drinks and a few pals' type bad. Just plain bad. The meandering mess of a story seems to be cobbled together and made up on the fly at times. The bloody set-pieces are serviceable enough if you're undiscriminating but they're fairly sparse, leaving one to suffer through mountains of stilted dialog said by interesting characters to get to said gore. Not worth it. Eye Candy: Veronica Adkinson gets topless as do Holly Kay Baker & Stephanie Stacy brieflyMy Grade: D-

OK, so shoot me, but I liked it. Really! It's obvious that no-one here had the ambition or pretension to create some mind-blowing masterpiece and the low budget is even more obvious. But in spite of that I had a good time watching it: the movie has a good pace, there's plenty of gore, and best of all: it's very funny.Sure, the story is flimsier than flimsy (mysterious sadist uses his van as a killing device by stuffing it with deadly booby-traps; innocent guy sees his girlfriend abducted by the van and decides to hunt it down) and we're way in the first hour of the movie before anything like a coherent plot starts to unfold - until then the many killings are coming more or less out off the blue. The acting is… well, let's say: sympathetic, as if friends and family of the director decided to help him out. And the look of the images is a bit grainy, maybe that's a budget-thing too (although they might have intended it, to resemble the 70's and 80's B-horror-flicks which clearly were an inspiration).But the killings are absolutely worth-while: abundant, original and very graphically visualized. Taken the low budget into account they work amazingly well, so kudos to the make-up and the special effects department. As to the story: indeed very thin, yet not very predictable (as one might expect), for instance I was pleasantly surprised by the negative ending, which boldly defied the laws of the genre by letting the hero NOT rescue the girl and getting unjustly blamed and punished, while the maniac walks free. About the actors: apart from Collin Bernsen it's only Brian Kolodziej who stands out. To say that this is mainly due to his cute and forlorn-puppy like appearance would be selling him short: he really has acting potential and also a keen sense of timing in the many humorous scenes and dialogs. Which brings me to the biggest asset of this movie: it's SO funny!! The whole movie is filled with situations and conversations that are on the brink of absurd, but are dealt with in a priceless deadpan sort of humor, that totally worked for me. The examples are countless: the receptionist at the employment office. The pot-smoking, good-for-nothing co-workers in the car-wash. Campbell's boss, all the time putting weird sexual innuendo's in every conversation. Campbell's room-mate, who's into SM and has sex in a dog-bin. And best of all: Swami Ted, a total wacko who decides to help Campbell out. Collin Bernsens portrayal is perfect: a wonderful mix of weirdness, overblown ego, a pot-fogged mind and the heartfelt sympathy of a bro-in-arms. What a pity Swami didn't survive - which by the way was (in my humble opinion) a bit of a script-failure: Swami joining Campbell in the rescue didn't lead up to anything, since he was immediately killed at the first confrontation with the maniac, so the whole big go-to-the rescue-together scene leaves the impression of being totally unnecessary for the story. But thank god it was there, since it was so funny!Anyway, my compliments to writers and director, I had a great time!! I rank it 8 out-of 10.