Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003)

**This review contains spoilers**

Following the events of Jeepers Creepers, Darry is dead, and presumably, Trish is still trying to comprehend the bizarre series of events in one night that changed her life forever.

One hot day, Jack Taggart, Sr. (Ray Wise) pushes his two sons, Jack, Jr. (Luke Edwards) and his youngest son, Billy (Shaun Fleming) to finish the day’s work on their farm. Jack struggles to fix the family truck, while Billy sets up a series of scarecrows. But when Billy notices one of the scarecrows moving in the cornfield, a routine day of work takes a turn for the worst. Posing as a scarecrow, The Creeper (Jonathan Beck) jumps off of his post, and chases Billy. With one swoop, The Creeper snatches Billy, drags him through the cornfield, and The Creeper flies away with Billy, as a helpless Jack Sr. and Jack Jr. watch in horror.

Meanwhile, a high school basketball team is driving down the countryside, when The Creeper Attacks. Using his sharp weapons made of teeth and bone, The Creeper targets the bus’ tires. The bus driver, Betty (Diane Delano) suspects something fishy during nightfall, but as she sets up the road flares, The Creeper quietly snatches her away. One by one, The Creeper kills every adult and authority figure on the bus (driver, coaches, etc.) until the kids are left by themselves, using the broken down bus for protection from The Creeper. Using his nose, The Creeper sniffs out his top choices by smelling the fear from the basketball players and cheerleaders.  The Creeper quickly disposes of two locals, who offered a helping hand, killing them in their truck before they could reach the police station.

And to make matters worse, Scotty (Eric Nenninger) is still bitter about taking a backseat on the bench, while his team rival, Deaundre (Garikayi Mutambirwa) receives more minutes, and a bigger role on the team. Instead of working together to fight and survive The Creeper’s attacks, Scotty schemes to eliminate Deaundre and anyone, who gets in his way.

During The Creeper’s attacks, a cheerleader named Minxie (Nicki Aycox) has visions of The Creeper’s plans, and through a series of premonitions with a deceased Darry and Billy, Minxie learns the truth about The Creeper’s lifespan:  every twenty-three years during springtime, The Creeper gets to eat for twenty-three days. On the twenty-third day, The Creeper will automatically go into hibernation for another twenty-three years, preparing for another feast.

Upon hearing a distress call from the team’s equipment manager, Bucky (Billy Aaron Brown) on his illegal radio, Jack Sr. grabs Jack Jr., and together, they take a trip to the bus to help the teens, and get revenge for Billy’s death. Believing he’s finally found a way to kill The Creeper, Jack Sr. takes his homemade harpoon (using one of The Creeper’s handmade daggers as a spearhead) to the stranded bus.

But time is running out on both sides. It’s day twenty-three for the winged demon, so The Creeper only has a few hours before he goes into hibernation for twenty-three years, and in the meantime, The Creeper unleashes a relentless attack for his last meal before his cycle begins. Jack Sr. and Jack Jr. race to help the teens, before The Creepr can devour everyone.

Well, it’s not fair to critique the performances for the adults on the school bus, because they’re killed off in the early stages of the movie. Although, Diane Delano always brings a few chuckles out of me as the disgruntled and miserable bus driver, who’s stuck in a dead end job, and doesn’t give a shit about anything. Nicki Aycox is decent enough as Minxie, but the remaining cast of high schoolers are mediocre at best. Beck is still nasty, intimidating, and repulsive as The Creeper, and Ray Wise delivers the best performance, as the angry and fearless father with a score to settle.

You can call Jeepers Creepers a stupid horror film, and I wouldn’t bat an eye, but Jeepers Creepers DID have some spooky moments. Jeepers Creepers 2? Eh, not so much. The main thing that pisses me off about Jeepers Creepers 2 is, it felt like they were trying to turn the sequel into an action film. A lot of brutal deaths, gory kills, and chase scenes, but there’s no terror or suspense, and the creepy eeriness surrounding The Creeper just disappears in this film.

Plus, Jeepers Creepers 2 is very, very, very boring.  The VAST majority of the movie is spent inside or around the school bus, and the entire cast of high school kids are constantly whining and bitching at each other the whole time. The jocks constantly tease and bully this one kid, who might be a homosexual, and a race feud erupts between the black kids and the white kids. Scotty’s hatred for  Deaundre starts the feud, and the situation gets real heated, when Scotty tries to exile Deaundre and his friends from the bus. Things sort of pick up, when Jack Sr. and Jack Jr. show up, but it’s a case of too little, too late.

The Creeper can fly. We get it. In Jeepers Creepers, The Creeper barely used his wings, and we didn’t actually see him fly until the very end of the movie. But in Jeepers Creepers 2, they just abused the novelty of The Creeper’s wings. “OH MY GOD HE CAN FLY!” Yeah, they really tried to tack on a “wow factor” to The Creeper’s aerial abilities with constant  and never ending shots of The Creature hovering in the air, swopping around, shadows of The Creeper hovering over his victims, and awestruck reactions from the cast, as The Creeper is flying. Problem is, once you see The Creeper constantly use his wings throughout the movie, watching him fly isn’t something to marvel at anymore. It just becomes a normal routine.

Darry and Trish were dumb asses, but they were entertaining dumb asses (and better actors). The high school kids are just annoying as shit in this movie, and the obvious stereotypes of your typical high school crew in a horror movie just made everything worse. Of course, you have the jocks, homophobic jocks, the nerd (Bucky), and hot cheerleaders. Bucky is constantly picked on and bullied in part two, and the hazing stuff  surrounding his character is so damn tedious.

For some asinine reason, they resurrected the “psychic, who’s unsure and not 100% confident in her premonitions” dynamic. Minxie is warned about The Creeper through visions of a dead Billy and Darry, and she tries to use her knowledge to help everyone on the bus……but wait. Minxie doesn’t want you to trust her, because she isn’t sure about her dreams. But wait a minute, on second thought, Minxie wants you to trust her, because she knows everything there is to know about The Creeper. No scratch that, Minxie is just having bizarre dreams, and you shouldn’t listen to her advice for life threatening situations. They constantly bounce back and forth in SO many directions with the Minxie character. In Jeepers Creepers, Jezelle was tolerable, because you don’t actually see her until the very end, but you have to suffer through Minxie’s indecisive melodrama bullshit for over an hour. It’s too much.

Too many sub-plots are another big problem for Jeepers Creepers 2. Here’s the list:

-Taunting and teasing the teammate, who might or might not be gay.

-Scotty hates Deaundre for stealing his spotlight, and not producing.

-Scotty has a problem with his presumably gay teammate.

-Scotty turns into a racist, and tries to systematically elmiante all the black people.

-Jack Sr. and Jack Jr. are trying to get revenge for Billy’s death.

-Jack Sr. and Jack Jr. are trying to save the kids.

And they just had to throw in the very predictable “I’m going to be the bigger man” moment, when Deaundre tries to save Scotty from The Creeper.

The Creeper uses more weapons this time around, and it’s cool to see a cameo from Justin Long. The gore is more brutal and disgusting here, and you get to see what happens, when The Creeper needs to eat a head, but still. Jeepers Creepers 2 is a frightless and tedious bore with no real jump scares or tension. It’s a damn shame, because Jeepers Creepers 2 has an excellent and promising intro that’ll get your hopes up for a good sequel, but everything goes downhill after the beginning, EVERYTHING.

Final Rating: 1/10

Jeepers Creepers (2001)

**This review contains spoilers**


As boredom sets in, Trish Jenner (Gina Philips) and Darry Jenner (Justin Long) come up with word games to add some excitement to their countryside road trip to visit their mother. As Darry drives Trish’s unreliable car, the siblings manage to pull a few laughs out of each other, but the fun stops, when a rusty old truck tries to run them off the road. As the driver of the rusty truck stops at an abandoned church a few miles up the road, Trish and Darry witness the mysterious figure dump two dead bodies wrapped in white sheets down a pipe leading into the ground. The figure spots Darry and Trish, and immediately pursues them in his truck. After a more aggressive attempt at trying to run Trish and Darry off the road, Darry drives through an open field for a quick escape.

Out of curiosity, and a foolish belief to do the right thing, Darry convinces Trish to return to the abandoned church, and inspect the contents beneath the pipe. Upon their arrival, Trish is scared by rats, and she accidentally drops Darry through the pipe after holding him up for a better view. In the caverns beneath the church, Darry finds one of the two victims. Darry discovers stitched wounds on the victim, and he dies shortly after Darry’s discovery. Darry finds an assortment of preserved dead bodies, stitched and hung up across the walls of the cavern. Horrified, Darry and Trish stop at a local diner to call the police for help.

After the diner, Trish and Darry are escorted by two cops in one car at night. The mysterious figure returns to murder the cops, but Trish and Darry escape to a reclusive old lady’s house. When the figure arrives, the old lady is more concerned with protecting her cats than helping Trish and Darry, or calling the police. During a struggle with a shotgun, the figure kills the old woman. Trish and Darry escape to the open road, where they learn the true identity of the figure: The Creeper (Jonathan Breck) is a winged demon, who survives by eating body parts from humans. Once The Creeper gets a likeable scent from fear, the creature will pursue his targets at all costs, with a determination to eat the desired body parts. At the diner, The Creeper was able to lock on to Darry’s scent by sniffing his dirty laundry. Angry and frustrated, Trish uses her car to run over The Creeper multiple times, seemingly killing the creature.

Trish and Darry await the arrival of their mother at a local police station in the next town, but the situation takes a bizarre turn, when Jezelle (Patricia Belcher), a local psychic, arrives to warn Trish and Darry. At the diner, Jezelle warned Darry with a phone call about the “Jeepers Creepers” song playing on the radio, because this song is a warning sign for The Creeper’s impending attack. According to Jezelle, the Jeepers Creepers song is currently playing on an old radio station. As Jezelle urges Trish and Darry to leave the police station for safety, the lights go out. Beaten, slightly deformed, and crippled, The Creeper has returned to eat  the body parts from one victim. But who will The Creeper choose: Trish or Darry?

Gina Philips and Justin Long are believable in their roles, but Trish and Darry are two very stupid characters (more on that later). Patricia Belcher doesn’t show up until the very end, and she’s kind of annoying as the hysterical and panicked psychic. And Eileen Brennan is “The Cat Lady” Trish and Darry visit in the middle of the night for a chance to make a phone call. The character reminds me of The Crazy Cat Lady from The Simpsons, but you can’t properly critique Brennan’s performance, because her character is killed off a few minutes after her first and only appearance.

You won’t see The Creeper’s true identity until the very end. Jeepers Creepers takes the slow burn technique to revealing The Creeper’s true demon form, so throughout the movie you’re constantly guessing, and trying to figure out the mystery behind the unknown attacker. Is he a serial killer? A creepy stalker? An Alien? It’s hard to tell, because The Creeper’s wings don’t come out until Trish runs him over with the car towards the end. And The Creeper wears thick clothing with a long coat and a hat, so you can’t see anything. Well, you can see the grey hair sticking out the back of the hat, but that’s about it.

The finale has its flaws (more on that later), but I enjoy the sporadic moments of suspense. Most of the spooky stuff (i.e. The Creeper taunting Trish and Darry on a seemingly deserted open road at night, and The Creeper ominously standing in The Cat Lady’s yard at night, waiting to attack). 

Jeepers Creepers features a few disgusting scenes of gore, and brutal violence. The Creeper using his teeth to rip the tongue out of a severed head is one example, and I can’t forget about The Creeper gnawing into a helpless prisoner, and tearing off a limb or two in the process.

BUT Trish and Darry are two very moronic characters. Here’s a list of their stupid mistakes in the movie, in chronological order (well, sort of):

-So Trish and Darry are going to visit their mother. They could’ve jumped on the freeway to save more time, and if something happened, they could’ve had a better chance to find help. But NO. Let’s take the deserted back roads through the country instead! It’ll take more time, and we’ll have to stop at a hole in the wall diner for help, while a murderer stalks us, but who cares! We get to look at a bunch of open fields with no livestock! Ugh.

-Darry’s more reliable car was an option, but instead, Trish and Darry agreed to take Trish’s piece of shit car? And yes, it’s a problem, because you’ll see a few “THE CAR WON’T START!” scenes, and the gears stick.

-Darry brings a cell phone, but the battery is dead. Seriously?

-The Creeper almost ran the siblings off the road TWICE, and the creature gave them a “don’t fuck with me” look, as Darry and Trish passed by the abandoned church. But Darry has to do the right thing, and he convinces Trish to return to the church to inspect the pipe? And on top of that, Darry has to stick himself in the pipe, and of course, Trish drops him into the underground hideout with mummified bodies.

-At night, Trish and Darry finally escape The Creeper. He’s miles away from them, and they have a good head start to the police station in the next county….but they decide to stop at The Cat Lady’s house. And guess what happens next? The Creeper catches up with them during the pit stop.

-At the church, instead of trying to help her brother out of the hole in the ground, Darry urges Trish to stand on the side of the road, and wait for help. Again, giving The Creeper more time track Darry and Trish.

-During the finale at the police station, Trish and Darry listen to and follow Jezelle without really knowing her. Jezelle leads them into a dangerous situation more than once, and Jezelle openly admits she’s not 100% confident in her predictions.

Jeepers Creepers is loaded with predictable horror clichés with the car not starting being the most annoying one. Plus, the warning signal for The Creeper’s arrival is beyond ridiculous. This movie gets its name from the actual song that’s titled “Jeepers Creepers.” The song is featured in the movie, and when it plays on any radio station, it means The Creeper is about to attack, or the creature is close by waiting for an attack. Yeah, it’s as stupid as it sounds.

Jeepers Creepers is one those frustrating and stupid horror films that will bring a lot of facepalms out of you, while screaming “don’t do that!” or “don’t go in there!” But with all that said,  I still love this movie. It’s dumb fun for me, and I always get a kick out of laughing at Darry and Trish’s stupid choices throughout the movie. For me, Jeepers Creepers is a guilty pleasure, but if you wanted to give this film a 0/10, one star, or an F for a rating, I wouldn’t fuss too much, or put up a big fight.

Final Rating: 5/10