Creep (2004 film)

Did You Know?

• The storyline has been compared to the 1972 film Death Line, also set on the London Underground and featuring a cannibalistic killer.
• Director Smith had not seen Death Line; he attributes his inspiration to a scene in An American Werewolf in London set in the London Underground.
• In May 2025, Smith was reported to write and direct a reboot of the film, with production starting in autumn 2025 and Shudder acquiring North American rights.

Plot

Sewage workers Arthur and George discover a tunnel in a wall; Arthur explores alone while George waits. George later finds Arthur injured and in shock, and a similarly injured woman is pulled back into darkness. Kate, a young German woman, falls asleep at Charing Cross Underground station and wakes to find the station locked for the night. She boards an empty train that stops abruptly, and meets Guy, a coworker whose advances she rejects.

Guy attempts to rape her but is dragged away by an unseen aggressor; he reappears covered in blood, warning Kate to flee. Kate encounters homeless couple Jimmy and Mandy and their dog Ray. Jimmy agrees to help her find the night guard after she pays him. They find Guy horribly maimed but alive.

Mandy is attacked and kidnapped, and Jimmy retreats into a heroin-induced stupor. Kate contacts the security guard via intercom, but the guard is killed before he can call for help; Guy dies of his injuries. Kate and Jimmy walk through a tunnel to the next station, but Jimmy is killed confronting the killer. Kate falls into the sewer system, finds Arthur's body, and is captured by the killer—a hideously deformed, mentally ill hermit named Craig.

Craig keeps victims in semi-submerged, rat-infested cages until they die, then eats them. Kate is placed in a cage with George, the sewage worker. They escape into an abandoned medical facility, where they find Mandy strapped to a surgical chair. Craig appears, mimics a surgeon's gestures, and disembowels Mandy with a bone saw.

Reception

Creep received generally mixed reviews from critics. Time Out gave a negative review, calling it a London Underground-set slasher that squanders a promising premise for trashy shocks and genre clichés. All Movie's review was favorable, describing it as light on plot but packed with creepy frights and psychopathic attitude.