Creep Van

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.

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

Campbell Jackson (Brian Kolodziej) is a 20-something, unemployed misfit in Detroit. Forced to take a dead-end position at a local car wash, Campbell sees a dilapidated 1970s van for sale... but this is no ordinary van -- it is the creep van!

We start the film with a character remarking that "only bad people own vans". I love that, as I think it is a widely-held sentiment. The featured van here, a Ford Econoline, is popularly known as a "rape van" (or "creep van" in this case). I am glad someone took the idea and ran with it.

Well played to Robert Hall on effects. Almost Human does some great work, and this film is no exception. At one point, we see a person who has lost their face. This is an excellent example of top-notch gore from these guys.

In cameos we have Angelina Armani (Hall's girlfriend) and Troma legend Lloyd Kaufman. That was a nice touch. The film as a whole has a nice, light-hearted approach to horror that I appreciate, and there is one scene that takes what could have been gratuitous sex and makes it actually entertaining in a non-sexual way.

Great horror film? Maybe not. But they knew what they wanted to do, did not try to go beyond their means, and pulled it off. I would take more films like "Creep Van" over the majority of the horror out there any day.

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.

The number of ultra-ultra-low-low beginner's school films seems to be increasing daily (thank you digital and thank you RED). Unfortunately they also should come with a disclaimer for consumers who want to be assured that what they're about to watch contains some level of competence.

While Creep Van doesn't really rank into that stinking dogpile, it comes a bit too close for comfort at times. I haven't seen "Gag" --- though it does sound pretty horrific, and not in a good way --- but at least "Creep Van" is reasonably well made in the technical sense.

Creep Van follows in the mold of Vehicular Homicide stuff from the '70s like The Car, only there's a very real psycho inside this titular rolling weapon. Whether that's good or not --- well --- I couldn't tell you, because there's no real reason given why the "creep" is slaughtering so many people with so many intricate and (sometimes) amusing deathtraps. Not that psychos NEED a reason to kill people, but if they don't, the filmmaker should at least give us something interesting to watch. That's not the pairing of Brian Kolodziej and Amy Wahrell who, though likable, don't have enough acting chops combined to chew through creamed corn. And isn't Wahrell a bit OLD for Kolodziej? I thought she was his mom half the time. But, I digress....

The main problem with this movie is, well...it doesn't know what it wants to be, exactly. The tone is all over the place: it wants to be a creepy, somber '80s throwback one minute, then a Fangoria face-ripped-off fright fest (but without one genuine shock, ironically), and then a wacky-as-all-get-out Troma schlocker. It actually does succeed in places, but the overall effect is jarringly uneven. It just doesn't have the sheen of a well-made film...even the stuff coming out of Troma these days is miles ahead in overall production quality.

Never thought I'd be referring to Troma as a mainstream standard but...in the context of Creep Van, it is.