Synopsis
After having narrowly escaped an attempt on his life at the hands of a psychopath, detective inspector Takakura quits active service in the police force and takes up a position as a university lecturer in criminal psychology. But his desire to get to the bottom of criminals’ motives remains, and he does not hesitate long when former colleague Nogami asks him to reopen an old case.
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Cast
- Hidetoshi NishijimaTakakura Koichi
- Yûko TakeuchiTakakura Yasuko
- Teruyuki KagawaMasayuki
- Haruna KawaguchiHonda Saki
- Masahiro HigashideNogami
- Ryoko FujinoMio
- Takashi SasanoTanimoto
- Masahiro TodaOkawa
- Michie IkedaSaki's Grandmother
- Naoko SatôTanaka
Recommendations
- 90
Village Voice
What's the opposite of a jump scare? Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa has mastered it in the superb Creepy, revealing the upsetting details with such slow-build subtlety that you don't notice your skin crawling until it's halfway out the door. - 90
Screen Daily
When the film shifts into territory less Hitchcockian than Lynchian – with a touch of Park Chan-wook’s Asian Gothic – the quiet confidence of Kurosawa’s approach has paid off, allowing him to vault into this more intense register. It’s not all just ghoulish fun, though: there’s a serious subtext here involving everyday evil. - 90
Variety
The film supplies a headlong rush of tension and cruelty all the way to a gratifying final payoff. - 83
The Film Stage
Together with the camera’s constantly creeping pans and dollies — as well as the bilious green tinge that permeates each frame — the film thus generates a sense of unease that intensifies very gradually and unremittingly, reaching an extreme pitch by the time of its denouement. - 83
The A.V. Club
Perturbed and darkly funny. - 80
Los Angeles Times
Creepy uses silence as a tool of terror, following its characters through long, tense scenes where everything’s a little too quiet, and where each creak sounds like a scream. The director has always excelled at making the ordinary seem unsettling. - 80
The New York Times
Creepy certainly works — looks and feels — like a horror movie, but it also has the conundrums of a detective story, the emotional currents of a domestic drama and the quickening pulse of a psychological thriller, a combination that creates a kind of destabilization. - 75
Slant Magazine
In terms of formal orchestration, Creepy is as sublime as any prior Kiyoshi Kurosawa film.
