A dark comedy/documentary feature, 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.
Watch the trailer for CREEP!
At first watch most viewers find many of the sequences in The Creeping Terror so unbelievably awful and ineptly executed that the movie transcends the sci-fi and horror genres and delves into the realm of comedy.
But the story behind the film contains all of the elements of classic movie-making that directory Art Nelson would have killed to have in The Creeping Terror. Tales of 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 make CREEP! a mesmerizing, hilarious and sometimes disturbing hit.
Art Nelson, aka Vic Savage, was a con-artist looking to make a buck. Movie-making was just one of his weapons of choice. But the methods to Art's madness in creating The Creeping Terror make Ed Wood's story seem trivial in comparison. Unlike Ed Wood however, CREEP! is told by the actual people who helped bring The Creeping Terror to life, for better or for worse. But CREEP! isn't just a documentary recounting the desperate tales of Art Nelson by those who knew him best.
The vision of CREEP! director Pete Schuermann is to include recreations of these sensational stories portrayed by high caliber actors. These wouldn't be typical recreations with voice over along the Ken Burns school of thought but rather elegantly produced scenes to set up the actual, and hilarious, footage from The Creeping Terror, also to be included in CREEP!
CREEP! is a comedic and satirical look at the movie-making process. The film will take a strong focus on the human element surrounding those caught up in that process, as well as offer a biographical glimpse into the creep himself, AJ Nelson.
The goal of this project is to make something wholly ENTERTAINING for all viewers.
Initially, the target audiences of CREEP! will be movie buffs and b-movie fans. Comparable marketing strategies would be those used for Crumb, American Splendor, Ed Wood, Ghost World, and The Life and Death of Peter Sellers.
Viable outlets for such a project include the film festival circuit, cable television, art house cinema runs, and eventual DVD and Blu-Ray distribution.