Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003)
Directed by Victor Salva
Written by Victor Salva
Starring Ray Wise, Justin Long, Nicki Aycox
Release Date August 29th, 2003
Published August 28th, 2003
I can remember clearly not expecting much from the first Jeepers Creepers movie and being quite surprised by how much I enjoyed it. What was most surprising was the character development--most horror films don't have any. Justin Long and Gina Phillips playing brother and sister in the movie was refreshing and the two had a familiar, brother sister chemistry that I enjoyed.
Jeepers Creepers developed two likable, believable lead characters for actors Justin Long and Gina Philips. What also worked was director Victor Salva's creative homage to Spielberg's little seen classic Duel, a film that has long deserved cult status. It wasn't a great film but it had the right mix of horror movie scares and knowing humor. For the sequel, director Salva returns without any of the elements of the first film, save for a cameo by Long, and makes another standard issue crappy sequel right off of the Hollywood assembly line. He didn't even use the creepy song that was a supposedly critical part of the first film.
Traveling down a lonesome backwoods highway, a group of teenagers are singing (as teens are so apt to do) about the big game they just won. Suddenly, a tire blows and the team's coaches and the bus driver make a grisly discovery--a sharp throwing star-like device made from human flesh and bone. Undeterred, it's back on the bus and not long before yet another fleshy weapon fells the intrepid bus.
Meanwhile as the adults parse the inanity of the horror plot, a group of central casting's biggest cliches argues over things even more inane and ridiculous than the film's plot. As the kids become aware of the trouble they are in, we watch a couple of rather unintentionally funny moments as the adults are picked off one by one by the flying demon we in the audience know is the Creeper. It is not until one of the cheerleader chicks passes out and has a very convenient psychic vision that the cliche kids figure out what they are dealing with. Not that knowing it does any good.
Parallel to the kids on the bus is the story of a farmer played to great unintentional comic effect by Ray Wise (better known as Leland Palmer to Twin Peaks fans). Wise chews the scenery as his son is picked off by the Creeper in the scene that played well in small bites in the film's trailer. After losing his kid, the farmer goes all MacGyver/Rambo and sets out to kill the Creeper.
The film's big mistakes are innumerable, from script to cast to effects, but the biggest problem is the Creeper himself, who was largely unseen in the original. For the first 30 or so minutes of the first film, I thought the truck was the bad guy. In Jeepers Creepers 2there are extended shots of the Creeper's face that show him to be a 1930s cartoon character come to life. (I swear I saw this guy stalking Porky Pig in black and white.) This demystifying of the Creeper lessens his effectiveness to be scary and when he makes facial gestures and mimes, he reminds the audience of Freddy Krueger (and a far better horror film playing in the theater next door.)
What Freddy or Jason lost in becoming the focal point of their respective series was made up for in the personality department--Freddy with his horrible quips and puns and Jason's miming and head tilts. The Creeper has no such hook.
The film also establishes certain rules for the Creeper and then proceeds to defy them. Supposedly, he feeds on fear yet, when he swoops off with the team's coach, the guy had no idea there was anything to be afraid of. The Creeper murders numerous people offscreen who seem to have been clueless to his existence before he killed them. The Creeper is supposedly out for particular body parts but he still kills at random.
Pointing out plot holes in a horror film is like shooting fish in a barrel, so I must report the few good things in Jeepers Creepers 2. I really enjoyed Ray Wise's comic scene chewing; I realize that the humor his character creates is unintentional but it's still the best part of the film. Wise's character makes the films ending its most effective moment, even if it is, as I said, unintentionally humorous. The other good scene in the film is a dream sequence, which gives the characters a little plot update. It's an extremely convenient plot device, totally random and hackey from a screenwriting perspective, but it is well shot and Justin Long's cameo is a nice reminder of the first film's shocker climax.
It seems any film with a "2" behind the title has sucked big time this summer and Jeepers Creepers 2 is yet another example of that. Does this mean that Hollywood will make fewer sequels? No. Does this mean they will try to make them better? No. What does it mean then, it means there are plenty more crappy sequels to come and likely one of them will be bad enough to make you forget how bad Jeepers Creepers 2 was.
