Mark Duplass “Struggling” With Creep 3 Development

The first two Creep films may have gone straight to streaming, but they’ve amassed a huge fan base in the horror community, and even outside of seasoned fright-seekers, their unique mix of comedy, shocks and found-footage mumblecore has been a winner, with plenty of people warming to the brilliant weirdness of it all, and critical acclaim bolstering both projects.

Some are wondering if Creep 3 is still a possibility, though, and in a new interview with IndieWire, co-creator Mark Duplass has offered an update, saying that they’re still working on the threequel …but it’s not been plain sailing.

“We’ve written it twice, and neither of those stories are good enough, and the reason is we almost didn’t make a Creep 2,” Duplass admitted. “We got lucky making Creep, as cogent as it is considering how we made it, and I didn’t want to disappoint people and I didn’t want to put out a stupid sequel.”

The first Creep focuses on a videographer called Aaron (director and co-writer Patrick Brice), who responds to an ad placed by Duplass’ Josef. He tells Aaron that he has incurable brain cancer, and is keen to record some messages to leave to his unborn son. Aaron quickly starts to suspect that there actually is no unborn son, and that he may have been ensnared in Josef’s demented trap. In Creep 2, Josef invites a different female videographer to document his life, with a twist: this time he will live openly as his wolf mask-adorned serial killer, Peachfuzz. The ensuing relationship between the pair is truly fascinating.

Duplass has previously explained that the first Creep was inspired by “character-driven dramas that are, at their heart, two-handers: My Dinner with Andre, Misery, and Fatal Attraction” along with “[his] myriad of strange Craigslist experiences over the years” but says he doesn’t think Creep 2 was as well crafted as the original movie.

“We decided to make Creep 2. We had to almost kill ourselves to make that movie as good as it was,” he admitted. “I appreciate how many people liked it but I do feel like it wasn’t as good as it could have been, if I’m being perfectly honest.”

Duplass’ disappointment with 2017’s Creep 2 has led to some clear caution around he and Brice writing a third movie in the series, which is why we haven’t heard too much about it in the last three years.

“If we’re going to make a third one, it’d better be super inspired,” he said. “We are trying and we are putting effort into it, but we are not good enough yet to make it worthwhile, so we are struggling. That’s really it.”

Duplass has certainly been keeping busy away from the twisted world of the Creep films. Last year saw the debut of Paddleton on Netflix, a movie he wrote and starred in opposite Ray Romano, and he also had roles in Goliath, Bombshell and Apple’s The Morning Show, as well as continuing to voice the character of Val Bilzerian in animated series, Big Mouth.

You can be sure that when Peachfuzz emerges from the shadows again, VOD and Netflix will be waiting for him.