Creep Van

I have seen Gag (2006) from director Scott W. Mckinlay and it wasn't my thing. It has taken a while, 6 years, before he made another full feature.

It's a different flick than Gag, Creep Van moves away from torture porn towards B-movie slasher. The effects used are really well done for a low budget but the acting wasn't always convincing. I guess it's a bit due the script not always being that good. When the killer appears the flick is okay and delivers for the horror fans and even the gorehounds. But it is in between that it sometimes become boring or even laughable.

The cameo from Lloyd Kaufman is funny because he's searching for Mr Kaufman. If you are into bad slashers from the seventies and even eighties then this is your thing, bad story, gruesome killings, gratuitous nudity.

Gore 2,5/5 Nudity 1,5/5 Effects 3/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

Know what I hate about a lot of modern horror films? The fact that so many have good, juicy death scenes... surrounded by acres and acres of pure undiluted s**t. I think you know where I'm going with this. The titular van has windows that'll decapitate you, seatbelts designed to suffocate and a button on the radio that will send a spike right through your heart. Great.

Until you realise... you have to tolerate unfunny sex jokes, repellent characters, hokey dialogue and BBAADD acting for 95% of the length. No thanks. Also, with all the VHS tapes in the background, and no sign of a laptop anywhere, could this unaccountably be set in the 90's? If so, I give them apropos. Of Nothing.

Ugh. Stupid film. Go away. 4/10

The clichéd image of rusty and ramshackle old vans and their drivers depicted here in "Creep Van" corresponds completely with what we've all been taught when we were young. "People that drive vans are evil" is what a mother says during the intro, just when her kid reaches underneath a nasty white Ford to grab his ball. That's exactly what my mother said to me - and what all mothers said to their children - in the nineties! What the freak driver doesn't do, however, is lure the children into his van by handing out free candy.

So, the set up for this film is quite good and recognizable, but then it quickly transcends into a cheap and trashy (but nevertheless highly enjoyable) B-movie with absurd situations and over-the-top gore. Campbell, a financially struggling 20-something guy living in Detroit, responds to the "for sale" sign on the white van because he's tired of taking the bus to his lousy job at the carwash. The owner of the van is a genuine psycho, though, who enjoys slaughtering anyone who comes near the old wreck.

I watched director Scott W. McKinley's other long-feature movie "Gag", and it was - hands down - one of worst "Saw" rip-offs ever. Luckily, I didn't realize at first that "Creep Van" was from the same guy, otherwise I probably wouldn't have bothered. McKinley's second (and last, to this date) attempt at directing is much better, because it sticks to ingredients that are guaranteed success: extreme gore, gratuitous nudity, unpretentious comedy, and cameos from infamous Troma-producers and adult film stars. The special and splatter effects, courtesy of the too-young-deceased Robert Hall, are excellent and include a couple of highlights like an airbag full of nails and nifty death traps.

Some loser living in Detroit without a car finds a job washing and detailing cars. The cashier girl develops an interest in him. His boss likes him, but his co-workers don't. Apparently he rents a room in a house of some sexually adventurous people. Eventually he decides to buy the cheapest car he can find. Nearby parked is an old van. He calls the owner but gets no response. Then the owner starts calling him and harassing him. We've seen this van before. It and its owner have killed a bunch of random people gruesomely. The van is rigged with all sorts of devices to brutally kill people. It's like a moving Saw trap.

Our loser runs into a strange customer. It's Swami Ted who forgets a bag full of marijuana at the car wash, which is quickly picked up by the other employees. Ted blames the loser and threatens him if he doesn't return the drugs, when suddenly the van appears and nearly runs over Ted, if the loser hadn't saved him. Now Ted is grateful and offers to help him whenever necessary.

Eventually the creep in the van grabs the girl and the loser and Ted will have to confront the creep.

Creep Van is an endearing C-level horror movie. Acting isn't all that great, the loser character is likable enough though. It was filmed in Detroit and has the independent East-coast film feel. The characters are human and actually talk to each other, unlike your big budget Hollywood productions. There's plenty of gore and it's first rate quality gore. No cheap CGI blood here. There's some nudity, too. Overall the story works, even though we learn nothing about the creep. The ending is surprising and good. But there's not a whole lot of sense of dread and it's not quite what you would expect from a movie called Creep Van. There should have been more pretty innocent victims killed the the van/creep. In a way the movie focuses too much on the loser and not enough on the bad guy.

CREEP VAN is a very, very low budget slasher flick, barely more expensive than your average Troma movie although it's a lot more serious in tone. Saying that, there is a Lloyd Kaufman cameo to hammer home the similarities, along with a couple of entirely goofy sex scenes that are played for laughs and have absolutely nothing to do with the central thrust of the storyline.

The creep van of the title is used by a sinister serial killer to butcher his usually female victims, and it takes a couple of no-good characters to team up and go after him. The plot is very light and pretty much an excuse for a string of gory deaths, which are the best thing about the film. The special effects are surprisingly decent for what is a low budget, even if they're completely laughable at the same time. Still, it takes more than gore to make a decent movie, and this is anything but; just another ultra-low budget piece of trash no different from all the rest.