Creeping Death

Matt Sampere had an idea years ago of a story he wanted to tell.

Matt wrote, directed and starred in Creeping Death, a movie that doesn't overcomplicate things and just tells a tale based in my favourite season of the year Halloween.

The movie caught the essence of autumn perfectly from the opening scenes.

It had it all with gore and great storytelling.

Yes characters came across unlikeable (like so many big budget Hollywood movies) so I found myself rooting for the monster which I thought looked very cool!

It also had great emotional scenes with his mother which pulled at the heart strings.

As I happened to stumble upon the 2023 horror movie "Creeping Death" by chance here in 2024, I opted to watch it since it was a horror movie that I had not seen before, much less actually heard about. And thus, I suppose that writer and director Matt Sampere has every opportunity to entertain and scare me with this movie.

The storyline was pretty straightforward, and while it certainly was a watchable horror movie, you're not in for a grand horror experience from writer and director Matt Sampere. The movie was, at best, a generic horror experience. Sure, I found the storyline to be adequate, but it was by no means a movie that brought anything new to the horror genre.

While I was actually not familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, I will say that the acting performances were actually fair. They had a good ensemble of actors and actresses to portray the various characters in the movie.

Visually then the movie was okay. It was not a movie that made use of an abundance of special effects. But whatever effects were in the movie were actually fair enough and served their purpose.

If you enjoy horror movies, by all means give "Creeping Death" a chance. You might just happen to enjoy the movie a lot more than I did. There are far worse horror movies out there, so why not give this movie a fair chance?

My rating of "Creeping Death" lands on a five out of ten stars.

Being from upstate New York, I loved all the upstate New York references and all the subtle Easter eggs you wouldn't see them then if you weren't looking for them. I thought the lighting was awesome and some great camera shots, angles like an old style, classic Halloween slash and dash movie. There are also many things that were unanswered and left open for a possible sequel or part 2. The bad guys mask was epic, that should be in all the Halloween stores this year in my opinion. The dude's eyes and twisted smile were very well thought up and put together. If youre from upstate New York, and you pay attention you'll see a lot of the same things that I saw. As a 'watch too much TV and shows' kind of person I thought this was a great first shot at what could be a series. 👏 👏

On Halloween night, a group of irritating twenty-somethings steal a mysterious sack from the porch of a strange old man, not realising that the contents of the bag - pieces of local dogs - are an offering to appease an ancient Celtic deity called the Aos Sí. In meddling with the age-old tradition, the obnoxious youths incur the wrath of the deity, plunging their friend Tim (played by the film's director Matt Sampere) into a night of terror.

It's bad enough that Creeping Death is clichéd, poorly written and badly acted, but add the fact that the film is so dark for much of the time that it's virtually impossible to figure out what is happening and what you have is a real test of one's patience. It's hard to be scared when straining one's eyes (or rolling them at the awful dialogue and dreadful performances). Great job in getting the film off the ground, but zero marks for originality, technical accomplishment, and overall entertainment factor.

Low budget. Unskilled actors. Weak story but still, in some strange way, somewhat watchable.

This is obviously a passion project for those involved but it fails to deliver for the mainstream. The characters are stereotypical, uninspired and uninteresting.

The special effects just aren't special. There's an attempt to create gore and although it's obviously low budget, some of it was interesting to watch. The kill aspect is what kept me watching. I wanted to see what they were going to attempt next. As a horror fan, that's what makes the film for me.

It's not an amazing film but it is someone's interesting new Halloween lore movie and if you're into checking out those new ideas, it's worth a watch.