In the near future of 2029, a private company known as the HTDA delivers closure to the recently bereaved through a simulation of their recently departed, a voice emerging from the titular Creep Box. Overseeing this procedure is neuroscientist and parapsychologist Dr Caul (Geoffrey Cantor, as seen in Marvel’s Punisher and Daredevil), a man tortured by the past but also by a growing concern over how far these voices are purely simulations.
Both written and directed by Patrick Biesemans, don’t expect any jump scares or gore from Creep Box, a slow-paced film filled with silences and contemplations of empty spaces, which is more interested in the philosophy of consciousness and the afterlife than ghosts or monsters. In fact, in a world otherwise made up of cold, harshly lit and sterile offices, boardrooms, workspaces and empty homes, Dr Caul’s darkly stygian laboratory, as creepy as it is, is one of the few lively interiors, filled with scrolling code, flashing lights and a multitude of eerie voices. With a central philosophy questioning what it is to be alive after death, Creep Box‘s most alive characters are often the dead themselves.
Much of this film is beautifully shot, with the camera work doing much of the storytelling, and the sound design with the ‘simulated’ voices is superb. There are also flashes of excellent, understated acting from all of the main cast. However, Biesemans seems more confident with constructing images and atmospheres than with capturing performances and so the characterisations can seem uneven or even frustratingly underplayed at times.
Creep Box asks a lot of questions and leaves many hanging threads, but it is also somewhat haunted by its own emptiness, feeling in some ways more like a short in its lean storytelling than a feature film. At best, by the end of the film, we know a little more about the central character, but he seems barely changed by the experience, and our understanding of his world is too, leaving behind a whisper of creeping existential dread but sadly little lasting impact once that whisper dies away.
CREEP BOX is released on digital platforms in the US on January 24th.
