Jeepers Creepers is scary all right, but not in the good way
“Jeepers Creepers 2,” the follow-up to the 2001 sleeper hit, isn’t going to scare the pants off of anyone like, say, “Halloween,” “Friday the 13th” or “Gigli” (OK, that’s the last potshot I’ll take at Ben-Lo’s bomb until it’s time to compile the “year in review” stuff … I promise … sort of). The best that can be said for “Jeepers 2” is that as sequels go, it’s not quite as awful as the rehashed reigning box office champ, “Freddy vs. Jason.” And I really hated “Freddy vs. Jason.” How’s that for an endorsement?
Sure, the trailer’s pretty darn scary: A sinister scarecrow menacing a young boy in a field. The creepy Creeper swooping in from the sky on an unsuspecting victim. A terror-stricken teen desperately pleading for help into a busted C-B radio. But don’t be fooled by this slick preview — instead of offering a fresh take on an overextended genre, writer/director Victor Salva relies on far too many stale clichés. The result is a film that is as lifeless as, well, most of the cast is by film’s end.
A bus full of high school-ers returning from a championship basketball game is stranded in the middle of nowhere after a couple of tires go flat. The phones don’t work, the highway’s deserted and there’s corn everywhere (never a good sign). An inspection of the tires reveals the blow-outs weren’t accidental, so the adults order everyone back onto the bus while they investigate. Bad idea, adults.
In swoops “The Creeper” (Jonathan Breck) — who looks like a cross between Rob Zombie and Edgar Winter — and away go the meddlesome grown-ups, probably because they’re old and boring and decidedly unappealing to the film’s target demographic.
The kids on the bus don’t have the foggiest idea what the ugly guy with the wings wants with them, or what they need to do to survive. They soon find out, though, because conveniently — way, way, waaaay too conveniently — a pretty cheerleader named Minxie (Nicki Aycox) not only knows how to root for the team, she happens to be clairvoyant. In a vision she learns that for 23 days every 23rd spring, a supernatural eating machine called “The Creeper” gets to feed on people and that she and her friends are the main course on this the final night of his ritual feast. So if they can just survive ‘til morning, well, they might make it home in time for the weekend kegger.
“The Creeper” returns and starts picking them off one by one. In between arguing about sexual orientation and racism while a few of their classmates are gruesomely murdered, the leads are able to deduce that “The Creeper” is carefully selecting his victims. But why?
Well, let’s go to our clairvoyant, shall we? Minxie informs that “The Creeper” has a taste for certain types of fear, and THAT is how he chooses his prey. Good thing for them he’s not hungry for the fear of never working in film again, or they’d all be dead. On second thought, maybe that’s NOT such a good thing. (Rated R for horror violence and language. Running time: 103 minutes)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 29, 2003. Read the original PDF.