Review by Frank Plowright

Creeping twists the idea of the haunted house show, where thrillseekers livesteam their investigations into places where the inexplicable has occurred. When their latest streaming takes a turn into pranking it’s time for a reset, and what one of them discovers is Draghici Asylum, a remote Romanian castle once owned by a tyrant and where experiments were later carried out on the criminally insane. Full marks for the establishment of foreboding danger, then.

Mike Richardson (plot) and Zack Keller (co-plot and script) aren’t concerned with originality, but with modifying the expectations of readers well aware no good is going to come of a trip to Romania, and survivors will be few, if any. At the start audience sympathy is directed toward Kiara, the most reluctant of the party, and someone who’s already known tragedy, yet her parents are willing to exploit that to advance her career prospects. However, she’s perhaps the only cast member not putting on a front, and the remainder are duly fleshed out before the trouble kicks in.

The general course is predictable, if not the actual details, but what pulls Creeping ahead of the pack is the phenomenal naturalism of Doug Wheatley’s art, previously seen to good effect on Star Wars material. It’s surely not giving anything away to reveal something savage and frightening exists in the castle, and Wheatley’s design is suitably horrific. Unlike a film where the special effects budget would restrict use, there’s not much tease before revelation, and Wheatley also bucks the trend for realistic artists by defining movement fluidly. His other designs also play into the cinematic template from the location to the cast of attractive twenty somethings.

With Dark Horse also involved in film projects there’s the suspicion Creeping either started out with that intention, or is intended as the primer for fundraising. Either way, Wheatley’s contribution maximises the possibilities and ensures the tension remains high.