‘The Creep Tapes’ Digs Into the Dark Origins of Peachfuzz

Episode 4 of The Creep Tapes, “Nobody,” takes us somewhere the series rarely goes: inside the Creep’s head.

The episode begins with “Ralph” (Mark Duplass), desperately warning the person he hired to film him the next day not to come. “The Bad One is here,” he says, explaining that someone is already inside the house and trying to get into his room. “I don’t know how long he’s gonna stay this time, but don’t come. Don’t try to reschedule. If he gets in here, it’s going to be a very bad day.”

Ralph barricades himself inside his bedroom and hides beneath the blankets, screaming at the intruder not to come in. But there is already a camera moving around the bedroom and through the house, seemingly on its own. “Go Away” is written across his pillows, and when Ralph finally notices the camera, he is confused. “Really,” he says. “How did you get in here? I barricaded the door.”

It soon becomes clear that Josef/Ralph knows whoever — or whatever — is tormenting him. “Is there any chance you can just kill me now and get it over with?” he asks. He reveals that he is supposed to be taking medication and says he can’t eat whenever this presence is around. When oatmeal and berries suddenly appear in front of him, Ralph tries eating but throws up.

Sitting in the bathtub, he recalls the first time this presence came to him: Thanksgiving 1982. He couldn’t eat because the “big bad man” was inside him, making him nauseous. His family forced him to eat anyway, and he threw up on the carrot casserole. They assumed he had food poisoning, but he knew differently.

“You were the only one who understood,” he tells the unseen presence.

Things become even more disturbing when he goes outside and discovers what appears to be a corpse buried beneath the leaves with one hand sticking out. Ralph shakes it, only for the hand to shake back, grab him, and pull him beneath the leaves.

Back inside, he takes handfuls of pills and begins screaming at his tormentor. “Do you want me to kill me or help me? What do you want?” Then he spits up a razor blade. “Oh, you want me to do it?” he asks, receiving a growl and a nod in response.

Finally, we see exactly who he has been talking to: It’s Peachfuzz.

After Peachfuzz attacks him in the bathtub, Ralph/Josef finds himself buried beneath the leaves outside, where the two finally talk. He asks if Peachfuzz is still angry with him and apologizes for hurting him, explaining that he had to because Peachfuzz bit his wrist. But when he looks at his wrist, there is no wound.

Peachfuzz suggests there may have been another reason he put his mouth on Ralph’s wrist and asks whether Ralph tried to stop the bleeding. Eventually, their conversation comes back to one idea: “Can’t both things be true?”

Peachfuzz then gives the man what he seemingly wants. “Make a wish, and I’ll be gone,” he tells him. But Peachfuzz also warns him be certain. “Once I leave, you’ll be all alone.”

Ralph/Josef makes the wish, the camera falls, and Peachfuzz disappears.

For a moment, he is overjoyed. He celebrates being free, takes his medication, and believes Peachfuzz is finally gone. He isn’t.

Suddenly, Ralph is begging to be released. “Are you going to let me go? Why are you doing this? Are you just trying to scare me? I’m terrified, okay. So please, please let me go. Stop. Stop it.”

For longtime fans, the moment should be immediately recognizable: It’s the scene from the first Creep movie, now being replayed inside this battle between Ralph and Peachfuzz. Ralph attacks Peachfuzz before eventually waking in bed and discovering that he is gone again.

But Ralph doesn’t exactly know how to feel about it. “I am glad he is gone, and I miss him,” he admits. “Both things can be true.”

Then the phone rings.

“Ralph? Yes, this is Ralph. Wait, what day is this?”

And suddenly everything falls into place. The entire episode has seemingly been taking place inside the Creep’s mind. Ralph is his latest alias, and the person calling is his next victim. Realizing what is happening, he becomes overwhelmed with happiness, crying and screaming, “YES! YESSSSSS!”

As star and showrunner Mark Duplass explains, going further inside the Creep’s psychology is something the series has increasingly allowed itself to explore.

“What that allows us to do is dig a little bit deeper into the psychology of what makes this guy tick, and, honestly, the sweeter side of him that is just human and looking to connect with people, and mine that a little bit more than we thought we would be able to in a show called The Creep Tapes,” Duplass says. “That’s been a really pleasant surprise for us.”

“We kind of doubled down on something that we tried with the first season with our ‘Brandt’ episode, where we decided to go internal in a way that we’d never really done before and sort of break a fourth wall by showing what’s going on in his brain,” explained cocreator, writer, and director Patrick Brice. “We thought that was something fans would really respond to, or something they were gravitating toward: Wanting to know more about this guy. We did that even further with our  ‘Nobody’ episode this season. I think the subject matter ended up being more intense than we were imagining it would be, and having to navigate that on set was really interesting. I thought it was one of the more intense creative challenges of this season.”

The Creep Tapes, Tuesdays, Shudder