Movie Review: CREEP BOX

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: February 2nd, 2025 / 02:46 PM

CREEP BOX movie poster | ©2025 Quiver Distribution

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Geoffrey Cantor, Seán Mahon, Ian Lithgow, Katie Kuang, Allie McCullouch, Annemarie Lawless, Adam David Thompson (voice), Aya Marseille Hull, Dan Cordle
Writer: Patrick Biesemans
Director: Patrick Biesemans
Distributor: Quiver Distribution
Release Date: January 24, 2025 (digital)

CREEP BOX turns out to be a misleading title for this slow-burn techno/maybe supernatural thriller. There is indeed a box, but neither it nor those associated with it are particularly creepy, albeit some are morose and/or morally dubious.

It’s approximately the year 2029. The box in question is the property of HDTA, a company that sells its services to well-heeled members of the public. As HDTA exec Devon (Seán Mahon) explains to potential investor Mr. Nichols (Dan Cordle), the tech allows the simulation of human consciousness of humans who have passed away, not actual contact with the dead.

People who are able to get the tech to function properly are called “whisperers.” Devon describes Dr. Franklin Caul (Geoffrey Cantor) as HDTA’s very best whisperer. This is fortunate for Franklin, as his bedside manner is awful.

Mr. Nichols wants to speak with his deceased wife. Franklin reinforces that the voice Mr. Nichols will converse with is “just a feedback loop of ones and zeroes.” The reason HDTA touts its product as superior to regular AI is that the feedback is based on personal memories and experiences, rather than just algorithms. (This is arguable, since some current algorithms claim to be developed based on memories and experiences, but for the purposes of CREEP BOX, we’ll accept this.)

We hear a woman speaking in a low, stream-of-consciousness voice about many things that bother her, including her husband’s infidelity. Franklin gets the voice to hone in by uttering a series of seemingly random but specifically chosen words.

While the stream-of-consciousness continues in the background, the voice from the box identifies Mr. Nichols as her husband and talks to him as though she were still alive. But Franklin has his own questions, and Mr. Nichols storms from the room.

However, Franklin has far better results with other cases, including a young boy, whose reconstructed memories may help solve the double murder of the child and his father.

Devon and his boss, Ellis (Ian Lithgow), are both overjoyed that the Department of Justice is interested in their work as it relates to crime. With his ability to select the right keywords, Franklin is crucial to their progress.

But Franklin has his own (not hard to guess) agenda. His conversations with Adam (voiced by Adam David Thompson), who committed suicide, raise the prospect that the box does not, as the HDTA folks believe, electronically replicate voices and personalities, but rather actually communicate with spirits from beyond.

This could be fascinating, but director/writer Patrick Biesemans works against inviting our empathy. Whatever is in the box doesn’t especially want to communicate or be preserved, so there are no stakes there – the worst HDTA can be doing (assuming these are spirits and not “ones and zeroes”) is a temporary annoyance to those who are contacted, not an unending disturbance of eternal rest.

While Cantor is wholly convincing in conveying Franklin’s usually stoic sorrow and anger, he is depicted as so mis-attuned to others that it’s hard to feel more than pity for him. (Indeed, he seems so icy that it’s a bit surprising he’s able to so successfully recognize the trigger words.)

Franklin is also not intrinsically engaging company, and watching him watch the numbers scroll on the box isn’t especially cinematic.

CREEP BOX is very heady. We can see where it might be a great short story, or even a novel. The issues it raises are well worth contemplating. It is also a well-made film. It just isn’t very compelling.

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