SCREENED AT THE 2004 TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL: Subway tunnels are creepy; anyone who lives in a big city knows it. There's something unsavory about those endlessly dank and deserted subterranean labyrinths that capture the darkest parts of our imagination. Take a look at John Landis' "American Werewolf in London" or Gary Sherman's "Death Line" (review here) for a few solid examples of cinematic subway terror. It's fairly obvious that first-time director Christopher Smith has seen both movies, because his debut "Creep" borrows liberally from both while staking just a little new claim of its own.

There's not really a whole lot "to" Mr. Smith's Creep. It stars Franka Potente (Run Lola Run, The Bourne Identity) as a snooty young lass who unwisely falls asleep while waiting for her subway train, waking up just in time to spend the next 70-some minutes chased around the slimy and rat-laden tunnels by a misshapen freakazoid who shrieks a lot.

That's pretty much it. So clearly inspired by Sherman's Death Line (a.k.a. Raw Meat) that it could almost be considered a remake, Creep is not all that concerned with things like plot, character motivation, sense or logic. Questions as to the admittedly creepy killer's lineage are left unanswered, while the underground presence of medical laboratories and underwater prison cells are left equally unexplained. The characters behave precisely like all horror ciphers do: they wander around aimlessly, they make way too much noise, they leave potential weapons behind, etc.

But this is not the sort of stuff that the horror freaks are worried about. We're concerned with the jolts, the gore, the monsters and the mayhem. And Smith delivers this stuff with a fairly adept touch. Franka's Kate runs across a handful of unlucky subway tube-dwellers, each of whom earns a gruesome dispatch in relatively short order. These kills are nastily intense and should prove quite satisfying to the gorehounds in attendance.

The setting is suitably unsettling and quite effective, yet there's a somewhat paltry skimpiness to the affair that leaves one a bit underwhelmed. Sure, it's pretty nasty to see a young gal get skewered while tied to a rusty old obstetrics table, but without a logical reason for all the mayhem, the sequence feels more exploitative than grimly horrifying. For a debut film, Creep is so well-directed than one wishes it was just a little more well-written.

Potente does a fine job in the lead role, though she's not required to do much more than scream, run, run and scream. A few of the supporting soon-to-be-corpses pique our interest and/or sympathy, but they're all dispatched rather unceremoniously. There is a cute little dog, however, if you're really on the lookout for a rooting interest.

On my way from the screening to the keyboard, I found myself torn between giving "Creep" a 3-star (Just Average) rating or a 4-star (Worth a Look), but such designations seem almost academic for a simplistic little horror-fest like this one. If you're a fan of all things horror-centric, this is one you'll certainly want to check out for yourself. And if you generally avoid movies in which a feral, drooling lunatic slashes up a half-dozen unlucky Brits, well then you weren't all that interested in "Creep" in the first place. Light on plot and almost entirely devoid of logic, the movie still manages to deliver a heaping handful of grisly goods...if, like me, you're into that sort of thing. 3.5 stars for the horror freaks; 1.5 for anyone else.

Review reprinted from eFilmCritic.com