Prime Cuts :: Clearing out the Amazon Instant Que: Come Meet the Reel Monster in Pete Schuermann's The Creep Behind the Camera (2014)

About four years ago I wrote about a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for a proposed bio-docudrama on Art Nelson, the total creep behind The Creeping Terror (1962), a film where a shambling carpet sample galumps around and slurps up several dudes and damsels, lingering and leering on the lady tushes as they get stuck in the creature's gaping maw. Two years later they managed to raise enough to get it done, and then The Creep Behind the Camera (2014) spent two more years on the festival circuit, but now, finally, it's available to stream to the masses on Amazon Prime.

Now, the cinematic tale of this con-man, grifter and complete whack-job, Nelson, under the name Vic Savage, is both funny and loathsome as director / writer Pete Schuermann pokes a stick into this noxious human cowpie, who apparently ran a prostitution ring out of his house, fleeced wannabe actresses for money and sexual favors, and abused his multiple layers of wives and children to advance his apocalyptic cinematic dreams. A dream that sort of came to fruition with the realization of one of the most gonzoidal monster movies ever made.

Told through first hand testimonials of those who survived both Nelson and the making of the film, dramatic recreations, and footage from The Creeping Terror itself, the film positively excels when focusing on the spit and bailing-wire of making a monster movie, revealing all kinds of mind-boggling behind the scenes shenanigans, including a high school band powered soundtrack, how it was shot on the Spahn Ranch, where Charles Manson provided all the (most probably stolen) cars for the film, and a running fight between Nelson and monster-maker Jon Lacky over unpaid bills, who kept stealing the creature costume from each other as the production was drawn out over nearly two years as financing kept running out. It also finally answers why the majority of the film is nothing but nonsensical narration that has nothing to do with sound equipment falling into a boy of water.

The rest of the film, focusing on Nelson's horrific personal life -- he was a convicted felon, a certified abuser and sexual sadist, probably could've spent another week in editing to shore it up just a bit more as the finished film feels too long (clocking in at nearly 2 hours), and yet not long enough. Yeah. The Creep Behind the Camera feels fairly immersive but gets too repetitive in spots and leaves several surfaces barely scratched with many raised questions and side vignettes left unanswered and unresolved -- namely the hints that Nelson filmed pornographic material with his own children for the raincoat crowd to compensate for the ill-gotten budget money he wasted on drugs, booze, and hookers.

Again, the stuff on making the movie is both fascinating and hilarious (especially the Charles Manson connection), but the look into Nelson's personal life as he schemes and screws his way through Hollywood is just sleazy and revolting and hard to watch. A more pathetic person you will be hard-pressed to unearth. (And if you ever do, please lower the rock and run. Run fast.) Despite the subject matter the film itself is very well-crafted. Thus, entertaining probably isn't the right word when considering the subject matter but The Creep Behind the Camera does make for one fine cautionary tale.

The Creep Behind the Camera (2014) Slithering Carpets / EP: Aaron DePry, Nancy Theken / P: Brian McCulley, Kyle Woodiel, Kevin J. Beechwood, Jeremy Lengele, Robert von Dassanowsky / AP: Robert C. Cage III, Marilyn Freeman, Ryun Hovind, Jeremy Lengele / D: Pete Schuermann / W: Pete Schuermann / C: Jeff Pointer / E: Dave Wruck / M: John Schuermann / S: Josh Phillips, Jodi Lynn Thomas, Bill LeVasseur, Kyle Amann, William Thourlby, Lois Wiseman, Allan Silliphant

Putting the CREEP! in The Creeping Terror!

When I try to explain to folks my unwavering fondness for thee gloriously hare-brained sci-fi and horror epics of the 1950's and early '60s, being a nuts and bolts kinda film buff, I never fail to mention my fascination for all those people who seemingly crawled out of the woodwork and slapped together a film with spit, bailing wire and no delusions (-- or any apparent aptitude in a lot of cases) as to what they were making and the real reason for making it in the first place: $$$. And, with hard work, dumb luck, or chicanery of the most dubious order, not only did they get these demented films made, through more hard work, dumber luck, or chicanery of an even more dubious order, they managed to find a distributor to unleash them on the viewing public. Which is why, more often than not, the story of the making of these cinematically-challenged films is usually a lot more entertaining than the finished product.


Art Nelson's The Creeping Terror (1964) is probably an apex example of what I'm talking about. Nelson also took the lead, under one of his many nom de plumes, Vic Savage, and edited this fractured flick together. And though scripted by Allan Silliphant (-- brother of fellow screenwriter, Stirling Silliphant ... and a check of credits reveals who landed in the shallow end of the gene pool), who penned Ray Dennis Steckler's marquee-busting monster musical, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed Up Zombies, and with Jon Lackey being credited with constructing a monster, whose shambling, shag-rug texture cannot hide its bizarre sexual organ-connotations, that took a long walk off a short credulity pier before it even creeped its first creep, this film would not have happened without Nelson's misguiding hand. And now, this felon, grifter and certifiable sociopath's story can be told. But not by me...

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"CREEP! chronicles the outlandish story of director Art Nelson in his audacious effort to produce a monster movie in 1964. The result was the obscure yet cultish film, The Creeping Terror. Considered to be the worst movie ever made, it also became one of the most mind-boggling scams in the history of celluloid."

-- the company line

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Producer Nancy Theken and director Pete Schuermann and their Slithering Carpet Films are in the first stage of a three stage process to bring this docu-drama on Nelson and the making of his magdumb opus, with interviews with bad film buffs and key members of the cast and production crew from The Creeping Terror. And along with these clips and interviews, Scheurmann intends to film a bio-flick on Nelson with many highlights -- eh, make that lowlights of his seedy film career and even seedier personal life, topped off with some hilarious re-enactments during the making of what many call the worst film ever made -- some of which can be seen in the extended trailer for CREEP!.




For the record, I don't find The Creeping Terror to be all that bad. Ineptly endearing and monumentally stoopid, sure, But worst movie ever? Nah. Not even close. Still, Theken, Scheurmanm and Co. promise to win that particular argument, augmented by a mind-boggling making-of tale that includes "sex, drugs, rape, money scams, high comedy, pedophilia, heartbreak, bank robberies, Nazism, missing persons, suicide, false identities and a tie-in to the Manson murders" means I for one cannot wait to see the finished film.




Right now, however, CREEP! is kind of on hiatus, and, in true, independent B-Movie fashion, they're efforting to raise completion funds. And if you'd like to help out, the filmmakers have started a Kickstarter campaign to get CREEP! creeping again. Until then, feel free to check out the website for more details.

Pertinent Links for CREEP!:

Website :: Facebook :: Twitter :: Kickstarter