By Geno McGahee
OK, I may as well address the elephant in the room. That elephant is convicted child molester, Victor Salva, who just so happens to be the writer and director of JEEPERS CREEPERS, JEEPERS CREEPERS 2 and the upcoming third entry. There are plenty of horror fans that will not support this guy’s work and rightfully so. Some people won’t eat at Subway after the Jared Fogle incident, but that made less sense. It’s not like Subway said: “He’s our guy. We’re sticking with him!” With the films of Salva, it’s easy to argue that we should all walk away from him and not give him any business, but there is the issue of the Creeper. We were asking for so many years for a new horror icon and here came the Creeper and you can’t get a creepier creeper than one created by a creepy creep. Is the love of the Creeper strong enough to get us to ignore the fact that we are lining the pockets of a pervert? I would argue yes. I would not suggest eating a Subway sandwich while watching JEEPERS CREEPERS though. That seems a bit much.
In 2001, after a terrible decade for horror (minus SCREAM and THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT), we saw hope. JEEPERS CREEPERS was not a great film, but it was certainly great by comparison to the crop of films that were coming out at the same time. We had a monster again and it was cool and original. There was an aura of mystery and not many of us knew anything about who wrote it and what they do when they are not producing films. It was a less informed time. Anyway, JEEPERS CREEPERS was a hit and a demand for a sequel was strong. In 2003, JEEPERS CREEPERS 2 was released and it was big news. It would make 35 million at the box office, doubling the budget, but failed to make the profit that the first one made. So both films made money but the sequel was not as warmly received and it has almost been forgotten. There is a good reason for that.
It’s been over 10 years since I watched the sequel and went into it with new eyes and an open mind. I’m looking forward to the third and I felt that it was time to brush up on the series and I hate to say that this film was far worse than I remembered it. Victor Salva’s story, dialogue, and overall strange atmosphere of this one made this one a difficult one to like even with the bad ass creeper in it.
We begin with Jack Taggart, SR., played by Ray Wise. I’m a huge fan of Ray Wise. He can really do any genre and do it well. I love his comedic work on Adult Swim as Skip Remmings and I look forward to seeing him in GOD’S NOT DEAD 2. Unfortunately, his role in this film is so dull and empty, he just couldn’t show his skills. He was just dealt a bad hand here.
Jack’s son, Billy (Shaun Fleming), is making sure the scarecrows are tied up well and this is one of the cool visuals of the film. Much like the first one, the Creeper (Jonathan Breck), poses as a scarecrow to get a jump on his prey. He grabs the young Billy and drags him away as Jack and Jack JR (Luke Edwards) watches on in total fear. I wonder if the creeper is what lives inside of Salva…or I’m reading too much into this. Just the visual of a creep dragging away a young boy makes you think that maybe he was being a little reflective with some of this film.
As Jack plans his revenge, we have a busload of high school kids coming back from a winning game and season. Everyone is happy except for Scott (Eric Nenninger). He just sits in the back of the bus and sulks, as his girlfriend, Rhonda (Marieh Delfino), sits with her cheerleader friends and talks about how he likes to be with the boys after a big win. Every guy on the bus doesn’t want to wear a shirt for some reason and I know you don’t hear me complain when it’s all hot chicks going topless, but I was getting a little creeped out here. Salva salivating over “high school” boys gave me the creeps. Jeepers creepers, where’d you get those perverted peepers?
The bus gets a flat tire and upon inspection, it is discovered that something made of bone and other things was thrown into the tire, piercing right through the rubber. The Creeper has a collection of weapons that he has made from the bodies of the deceased. At one point, he has one of his throwing star things that was made out of Darry’s (Justin Long) belly button. And they actually bring Darry back in this film. As you know, Darry, played by Justin Long, was killed in the original and when do you ever see a victim come back in a horror film. A bad guy coming back is the norm, but not a good guy. So, Minxie (Nicki Aycox), is a cheerleader that has acquired some psychic ability. She connects with Darry and he just points and then points again and makes pained expressions. Then we see Billy, the latest victim, and he’s doing the same, but there is a difference. Darry isn’t injured. He still has his yes. Billy has a head wound. You would think that they would not have that sort of stuff in the ghost world. I found it quite odd, but things get even odder.
Izzy (Travis Schiffner) is outside taking a leak alongside topless Jake (Josh Hammond) and the “jock strap boy”, Andy “Bucky” Buck (Billy Aaron Brown). Jake starts asking why Deaundre (Garikayi Mutambirwa) is getting all the coverage in the school paper. When Izzy doesn’t really respond, Jake brings up the scars on Izzy’s face and how they got there. He got sliced up at a gay bar and now people want to know Izzy or isn’t he gay. That’s how they keep putting it. What the fuck movie am I watching?
Scott continues to stew and a news report comes on the radio, noting that all the bodies in the church from the first one were discovered. When this is brought to the attention of Scott, and he’s asked: “Do you believe that man?” He gets a pouty face and says “No. They’re making it up.” What a dick! Rhonda goes and sits next to him and she asks him what’s wrong and he notes that he was only allowed to play 12 minutes of the game and that if he wasn’t white, things would have been different. He later brings up Izzy’s sexuality. Damn that Scott “Scotty” Braddock…he’s a homophobe and a racist. I hope the creeper teaches him a lesson.
As in the first one, the Creeper loves fear and he has found Andy quite attractive. At one point, the Creeper looks at Andy and winks at him. What?! After watching that wink, I have to think that the Creeper is going to have sex with Andy, or he was trying to mock the homophobia that was rampant on that bus by showing them how foolish they are as he threatened rape with force against another dude. I’m guessing that he was just going to rape with force another dude.
The majority of this film takes place on this school bus as the Creeper swoops in, takes somebody, kills them, and then comes back again. He does some new and cool stuff that I feel needs mentioning. At one point, he rips off his own head and throws it at Rhonda and replaces it with a victim’s head that he just tore off. This is something he does. He did it with his limbs in the original, but I never saw him actually rip off his head. You’d think that would be a bit much, right?
There is too much CGI in this film. The original had little to none. This one had the bigger budget and put a good deal of bad CGI in here. The Creeper is so awesome, but to see the CGI put in there in places that it really didn’t need to be took away from the film, but the biggest problem that this movie had was the writing and overall direction. The dialogue is just so forced and unbelievable. In the original the two characters were defined well, but I think that Salva showed his weakness as a writer when he had to focus on a group. Instead of sitting down and defining each one, he gave them characteristics. We have Jake, the jealous homophobe. We have Scott, the angry racist homophobe. We have Andy, the geeky nerd. We have Deaundre, the hero. We have Minxie…well, she’s named “Minxie.” This is just a huge mess.
JEEPERS CREEPERS 2 is a big failure. There’s no other way to really put it. Salva was rushed to write this, obviously, but his ideas consisted of: guys getting sun without shirts on, more guys without shirts on, a young boy being dragged away by the Creeper, and some racist/homophobic guys…typically without shirts on. This is Salva’s Men Gone Wild here. In defense of Salva, the actors were all fit and should be proud of their physiques, but I found it was getting gratuitous.
The film has its share of positives that I want to cover here. The visuals, at times, were very good. The shots of the Creeper on the scarecrow post and then jumping off was quite impressively done. Jonathan Breck plays the character incredibly well and was still imposing in this film. Nicki Aycox, Marieh Delfino, Travis Schiffner and Ray Wise all deserve credit for their effort here. They did their best with what they had…they just didn’t’ have much at all to work with.
So JEEPERS CREEPERS 3 is on the horizon and I hope that the 13 years that Salva has had since this one were constructive ones, and that we get a better film than this. He’ll have a hard time making a worse one.
Rating: 2/10
