HE

He (Creep Creepersin, also writing and directing) awakens in his shithole house and rises to a morning ritual of teeth-brushing, coffee and Cheerios.

While cleaning his pearlies and singing into the bathroom mirror, his equally nameless wife (Ariauna Albright) appears and sulkily asks him to sort out their house’s outside lights before the neighbours get theirs done.

Over breakfast, it becomes apparent that he’s quite content with his lot. Conversely, she is not: she appears to be bored by everything, even the news in the morning newspaper when it arrives.

Still, the man has an outlet from all of this: the promise of a new job to go to that morning. Only, things don’t work out and when he returns home early he suffers another ear-bashing from his wife. By this point, she’s sitting on the floor of an untouched child’s bedroom cradling a couple of unused toys.

The tedium continues (for them, and for us) as she asks him to cut the front lawn. "I don’t want a blade out of place" she says, and he makes sure there isn’t ... with a pair of scissors.

Could things get any worse? Well, that day ends and they retire to bed, sleeping back to back. She despairs at his snoring. She despairs even more when the following morning brings the same old rigmarole – him acting buffoon-like in his idiotic optimism (trying to keep their end up, perhaps, in the face of tragedy?). But the cracks are beginning to show: he’s losing his patience with his icy, unwelcoming spouse.

There is an interesting theme to the film: that of duality; people who have one persona with those close to them, but live out another one elsewhere. But such a conceit should have been revelatory. HE produces too little too late, by which time most viewers are likely to have either switched off or fallen asleep.

The film opens to the sound of a ticking clock. A time bomb. These characters are the time bombs, literally counting down to explosion. However, he’s so fucking irritating and sloppy that you can’t help but share the wife’s disdain for him. The tagline says "he is misunderstood ... and his wife wants him dead". If I lived with him, I would too.

HE features a theme song sung in the style of Staind. It’s fucking horrible, really self-consciously maudlin to the point of eliciting inappropriate bouts of laughter from anyone listening. And that pretty much sums up the film too. Unless you’re into long pauses, watching people eat, and sitting through boring scenes of bad acting – this won’t be for you.

HE looks fairly grainy and soft in this presentation, an overly dark and somewhat dank-looking affair that in the very least is 16x9 enhanced. Colours are dulled and detail is lacking throughout.

English 2.0 audio is disappointing too. For the most part it’s muffled, which I assume is a fault of the manner it was captured on film. Occasionally though it wakes you up with its ungodly loudness. It’s a blessing then that there was no background noise.

Although not signposted on the disc’s menus, there is a director’s commentary track available here (as listed on the back cover). You’ll have to tinker with your DVD player’s remote control audio button to get to it. It’s a fairly academic run-through from Mr Creepersin.

A 14-minute Making Of documentary involves much cast and crew on-location interviews amid cigarette smoke, and choice samples of dialogue such as writer-director Creepersin claiming "I don’t remember writing it or doing it ...". The film was originally going to be called "Wred", after the camera it was shot on, by the way. I’m not entirely sure why the director insists on overdubbing those who accidentally refer to his real name with the deep throated "Creep!" ...

A 2-minute letterboxed trailer for HE is also provided.

The disc is rounded off by a selection of trailers for other films directed by the creepy one: CORPORATE CUT THROAT MASSACRE, DING DONG DEAD, ERECTION, CREEP CREEPERSIN’S FRANKENSTEIN and PEEPING BLOG.

Some good visual ideas and a clear knack for evoking atmosphere can’t quite help Creepersin overcome the usual no-budget problems of lousy acting (including his own) and a rather lifeless pace. Plus, of course, the film overall is pretty rubbish.

It probably won’t help in the long run either that MVD Visual have opted for DVD cover art that brazenly alludes to STRAW DOGS. Not only is this misleading, but it just makes viewers pine for Peckinpah’s infinitely superior (and wholly unrelated) film.

Review by Stuart Willis