By Geno McGahee
It took me some time to give this one a shot. I kept hearing a lot of negative stuff about this film and it seemed unanimous. So, I wasn’t eager to put down twenty or so dollars to find out if the word on the street was correct, but time passed, and the price dropped. So, for 12 dollars, I bought the DVD, hoping my love of the creeper would come through and that I would enjoy this film.
In 2001, horror was in need of a new icon and it appeared to have one with the Creeper. JEEPERS CREEPERS was a great film that would become very popular, leading to a sequel in 2003. JEEPERS CREEPERS 2 wasn’t much of a film and didn’t add anything substantial to the story or the creature. So, the Creeper disappeared and would return in 2017 in JEEPERS CREEPERS 3, a really underrated film. As much as I liked that one, it didn’t go over well and the series was dead, but this is a horror franchise and those can go on forever.
JEEPERS CREEPERS: REBORN is a re-launch of the series with a 5 million dollar budget. That’s not much to play with, but THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT was made on 5 grand. So, money isn’t everything, but when you make a movie about a monster that flies around and fucks shit up, it’s good to have a decent budget.
Laine (Sydney Craven) and her boyfriend, Chase (Imran Adams), are on their way to a big horror gathering. Chase is obsessed with the Creeper, watching an Unsolved Mysteries episode about it, which is basically based on the original beginning of the first film. Laine isn’t into horror and is a skeptic of just about everything, even bringing up the moon landing hoax theory. Hey Laine, that theory is sound.
The two get a hotel and we get a very weird scene where Laine dresses up like several notable characters like Freddy Krueger and Harley Quinn while Chase is really excited, or I guess he was supposed to be. There really isn’t any chemistry between Craven and Adams. I’m not sure if the director wasn’t doing his job or if the talent just didn’t have the ability to get it together, but it’s hard to imagine these two together in reality.
The festival features a bunch of people dressed up like horror figures and they all seem to be having a good time. Chase and Laine enter a contest where the winner gets to partake in an escape room in the Creeper’s house…or the rumored Creeper’s house. It’s not that far-fetched. How many people go to supposed haunted houses with the hopes of being scared or seeing real paranormal activity? A bunch. At least a few.
Laine has the winning number and she is driven over to the house along with Chase, Stu (Peter Brooke), Carrie (Ocean Navarro) and one other character that hates rednecks. I can’t seem to find his name anywhere, but it doesn’t matter much, I guess.
The group has to walk through a graveyard and the Creeper (Jarreau Benjamin) swoops in and picks up Laine and flies away. The rest of the group goes to the house and Chase starts frantically asking everyone where his girlfriend is. He saw the Creeper pick her up, but he still thinks that Stu might be in on it. Actually, Stu gets a lot of shit because he’s a country boy.
Laine is tied up and she is pregnant. The Creeper wants the baby, but he is pissed off that those assholes are in his house. So, he’s going to kill them and he’s got help in this one. There is a cult that worships and helps the Creeper and I think that is really awesome. I like cults though. I loved HALLOWEEN: THE CURSE OF MICHAEL MYERS with the cult that worked with Michael Myers. You have to figure that if there is a killer force that there will be people that think that they are mad cool and might go as far as to worship them. Look how many serial killers get love letters from people on the outside.
The CGI/green screen stuff in this film is everywhere and it can be distracting. I’m not sure why this was the route that the producers went, when they could have probably done a lot of this practically. With a 5 million dollar budget, getting a house and a graveyard doesn’t seem that difficult, but maybe it was. Maybe this was the only way they could do what they wanted to do with this and maybe they didn’t get the 5 million as reported. There’s a lot of maybes here.
The look of the Creeper isn’t as good as in the other films for sure, but it’s not bad either. I also liked the performance by Benjamin as the Creeper. He was menacing and brought it to life and did some things that I found very amusing. When the Creeper breaks down a door, he looks in and smiles and waves. The Creeper always had a personality that would have range, including a sense of humor and he has it here.
The Creeper listens to his old record player and you’d think that he would be listening to the Jeepers Creepers song, but he isn’t. He’s listening to some knockoff song that is supposed to sound like it, but it blows. You’d think that the change in song wouldn’t mean that much, but it did. They should have saved on CGI and put that money into purchasing the rights for the song.
Even though I hated the change in songs, the Creeper going ape shit when Stu breaks his record player was very funny. I can’t blame the Creeper for being upset. I can’t imagine seeing him walking into a Best Buy and buying another. He was stuck with the old one he had and if it broke, he was fucked and he was fucked here.
The survivors of the group, Laine, Chase and Stu, plan to kill the Creeper but there isn’t a lot of emotion here. I can see why people have had a hard time liking this movie because it’s difficult to get invested in the characters. I’ve heard that they weren’t always in the same room because of the pandemic and, if that is the case, then it makes total sense why it’s not clicking.
The final attack on the Creeper by the group is pretty amusing and we get a “how do you like those peepers bitch” from Laine at the end, which was pretty funny. We also get room for a sequel to this new start of the series, but that might not be likely at this point considering the reaction and bad reviews, but this isn’t a bad review. I’m recommending this one.
JEEPERS CREEPERS: REBORN isn’t a bad film, but the execution of the production is where the problem lies. The cast didn’t click and there was no chemistry between the main couple. The characters didn’t really act terrified like you think they would when some monster was hunting them down. The dialogue wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t delivered very well by any of the cast. As I said earlier, if they weren’t in the same room together due to the pandemic, it’s totally understandable why they couldn’t find their rhythm.
The good outweighs the bad here and this is a very enjoyable film. I liked the Creeper and the overall story. The addition of a cult was great and seeing the Creeper stand with the cult was a cool visual. This feels like a straight to video horror sequel from the early 2000s and there’s nothing wrong with that. I like those sorts of movies. It’s what I rented from Hollywood Video back at that time.
In the end, I did not waste 12 dollars. I am happy to have this in my movie collection now and recommend it if you like the Creeper or if you are just a horror fan. If you can forgive the bad acting, zero chemistry, bad CGI and lack of real Jeepers Creepers song, you will like this I bet.
