It is tempting to posit that, when it comes to creepiness, we know it when we see it. But we don’t, really, not for sure, and that’s the trouble. Creepiness is the nightmare version of seduction: it can crop up in an instant, in a gesture or an ill-starred turn of phrase, and yet it takes much longer to expunge from the imagination. Is John Travolta creepy as a disco predator in “Saturday Night Fever”? Hard to say. Is he creepy as a weathered, black-clad gentleman who leers at women while fondling their chins? Yes, very much, and now forever more. What changed?
-The New Yorker
