My quick rating – 4.1/10. Creep Nation sets itself up with a premise that should be terrifyingly relevant – a young woman books a weekend rental, only to find herself the unwilling star of a dark-web livestream. On paper, I figured that’s more than enough to build a tight thriller. But what unfolds here is a movie that keeps trying to spark tension while standing in a puddle of its own predictability.
The first half hour doesn’t do the film any favors. Our lead, Alysa, walks into the house and immediately ignores every red flag imaginable. The guy renting the place out practically oozes “I have bodies in the basement,” and yet she strolls right in, sets her bags down, and acts like it’s a charming countryside retreat. You almost want to yell at the screen, “Girl, wake up!” but she doesn’t, of course, because then we wouldn’t have a movie.
To its credit, the idea of a dark-web network monitoring her every move is genuinely scary. It’s a theme I assume would hit close to home in a world where privacy is more illusion than fact. But Creep Nation doesn’t stop there. It decides to escalate into territory that’s far-fetched and had me rolling my eyes. The moment the film dives into its broader conspiracy, it loses much of the grounded fear it could have capitalized on.
The pacing is another issue. This is meant to be a slow-burn revenge thriller, a format that can work when the tension steadily tightens. Here, though, the story flatlines. It meanders through its setup, stalls in the middle, and never quite finds the momentum it needs. The more details revealed about Alysa’s disappearance, the more it becomes apparent that I’ve seen all of this before, only executed with sharper writing and stronger suspense elsewhere.
Performance-wise, it’s a mixed bag. Adam Seybold, playing Alysa’s brother, comes out looking the strongest. He brings enough urgency and emotional grounding to make his scenes the standout moments. Liv Collins, unfortunately, doesn’t quite carry the weight of the lead role. She isn’t bad, but she lacks the range needed to sell the escalating fear and desperation the story demands. The rest of the cast sits somewhere between competent and forgettable, matching the film’s overall “good enough, I guess” vibe.
Ultimately, Creep Nation has a rather eerie core concept but doesn’t do nearly enough with it. The script needed tightening, the pacing needed sharpening, and the tension needed to be amped up entirely. Instead, we get a thriller that feels oddly ordinary despite the dark subject matter. Not unwatchable by any stretch, but nowhere near as gripping or memorable as I would’ve liked. This is one of those “you’ve seen this before and better” types of films.
