Jeepers Creepers 2

Review by Clint Morris

The thing about Victor Salva’s Jeepers Creepers was that it was neither a slasher movie nor a monster movie.

It was a thriller, a genuinely suspenseful one where the audience would never know what to expect, or for the fact, what that dark shadowy thing in the car behind the lead characters was after.

Sometime after the release of the first film and announcing a second, Salva’s been influenced to turn his nail-biting chiller into a less edgy, and more mainstream popcorn horror film, with the lead character, a winged monster nicknamed ‘The Creeper’, into more of a Freddy Krueger or Michael Myers than a strange presence that lurked in the shadows.

Gone is the fresh element of the first film and its place your typical slasher movie where a heavily made-up actor chases a bunch of arrogant, unsuspecting teens about.

In addition, there’s suddenly some mumbo-jumbo about the Creeper and how “Every 23rd spring, for 23 days, it gets to eat..." Don’t recall that.

This time, it’s a bus load of football players that the Creeper has set his sights on. He pops their bus tire and then one by one, starts to pluck the youngsters out of the bus and gobble them up.

The victims only hope lies with a local farmer, (Ray Wise, forever known as “Twin Peaks” nutty Leland Palmer] who’s more than prepared to battle this beast, ever since it abducted his son years before.

To put it brusquely, Jeepers Creepers 2 isn’t the same kind of film as the first. It’s almost in a different genre.

The chills aren’t here, the suspense neither or, for that matter, an able script. But what it lacks in the scare department it makes up for in the action department, and still manages to be a genuinely enjoyable number.

The storyline’s not much, but Salva manages to work it as best as possible, in turn pulling off something better than what someone else might have had they simply taken the script and made it from that.

Secondly, the special effects are first rate, the pacing perfect, and most importantly, the villain is a knockout.

Inferior to the first movie, there’s still a good time to be had with the Creepers second outing - just be prepared to laugh a lot more than giving the lungs a work out.

3 out of 5

Jeepers Creepers 2
Australian release: Thursday February 5th
Cast: Ray Wise, Jonathan Breck, Garikayi Mutambirwa, Eric Nenninger, Nicki Aycox, Travis Schiffner.
Director: Victor Salva.
Website: Click here.