When I watched this the first time quite a few years ago, it seemed like it would be a one-off. Now they plan the 3rd one, which is going to come out in 2011. Good or bad, the same director will be at helm, who claimed back then, that he wanted to make sure, that there wouldn't be any sequels. He had it all planned out (a story element would make this "impossible" to happen).

But I'm not going into detail about that, because I thought the movie was genuinely scary and creepy. I have to admit, that I wasn't aware of an obvious reference, that the title might have suggested. If you know it, it won't hit you as hard as myself, when it gets revealed at the end. But still, if you can go through the beginning and bear with it, when it gets pretty action-y towards the end, then you will enjoy it. I know I did. But I can understand, that some people did expect different things from it. I can only speak for myself and say that I liked the fact, that this was made the way it was. It dares to be different and does not give you a bunch of teenagers being hunt down by one guy ... Not to mention, that all this has a very cool conclusion (the main idea if you wanna call it that) in the end.

This teen horror flick looks like it might be a little different from others. In the first half hour, we're offered a brief but tense re-run of the truck attack in DUEL, and a superbly spine-tingling shot of a mysterious figure dumping a body into what looks like a pipe. From then on the film overdoes on atmosphere and brings to mind some of the same fear of the unknown as films like THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. Following the male lead's descent into the pit, there are one or two effective shock scenes and a nicely gruesome image involving a room covered in naked human bodies. And from then on, my friends, it all goes downhill pretty quickly, undoing any of the horror of the beginning.

The scene in which the two teens discover that the "Creeper" has been rooting through and sniffing their used laundry is laughable rather than scary, and a gross miscalculation on the film-makers' part. From this point the film becomes a road movie which becomes more absurd with each mile. Our main characters stop off at a remote house and see a comic relief bad-mouthed old woman (someone evidently saw LAKE PLACID) get killed by the "Creeper", and then manage to run it over repeatedly in their car. Instead of driving off like a normal person would do, instead they sit and wait for the creature to regrow itself back together and come after them again. Scenes are stretched out with endless waiting, making the agony seem like an eternity, and then comes a finale which is one of the most ludicrous of all.

Our protagonists hole up inside a police station in the middle of nowhere which just happens to be run by a night-shift skeleton staff of about thirty officers! Of course most of them are brutally dispatched by the "Creeper", which then proceeds to kidnap the male lead. Then, after a graphic shock sequence, the film just suddenly ends as though they had run out of film. Sure, the ending is downbeat and surprising, not to mention mean-spirited, but scary? Not a chance. Just plain dumb, abrupt and badly envisaged. Other contrived plot elements involve a female psychic who turns up to offer advice and scares, and the "Jeepers Creepers" song of the title which keeps recurring for no real reason.

The basic plot bears resemblance to THE HITCHER, with innocent characters being pursued by unstoppable killers. Ironically the killer itself is this film's biggest weakness. Initially a genuinely spooky character in slouch hat and ragged clothes, the Creeper eventually reveals itself to be a reptile bird-man, complete with huge flapping wings and sharp, pointed teeth, with which it eats human flesh. Now I'm sorry, but the image of this creature is just ludicrous and suited more to a fantasy film, not a horror flick which is trying to be realistic and thus scary. I've heard this film being over-hyped as one of the scariest made in the last ten years, but this is just nonsense. JEEPERS CREEPERS follows the worrying trend of substituting alarming "shock" moments (periods of quiet leading up to a sudden, loud noise or burst of movie, in conjunction with something unexpected happening on screen - see WHAT LIES BENEATH for more of this) for real horror, which makes for one lame viewing experience.

The acting from the two leads doesn't help much either. The actor and actress aren't awfully bad, it's just that the two characters are so unappealingly stupid and caught up in post-modern witticisms that you end up disliking them. There are no supporting characters either, aside from the "Creeper", and that isn't human. Everyone else gets killed. In the end the film resorts to blood-and-guts scares involving bouncing severed heads, tongues being pulled out, and people having their hearts torn out which is pretty disappointing. Director Victor Salva should never be allowed to make another film after blighting us with this and 1987's CLOWNHOUSE; here he shows that he hasn't progressed as a film-maker at all, still intent on bombarding us with childish shocks instead of real mind-numbing, adult horror. The saddest thing of all is that JEEPERS CREEPERS enjoyed a successful theatrical run, which means that a sequel can't be far off...

Bickering brother and sister, Darry (Justin Long) and sister Patricia Jenner (Gina Philips),are driving home cross country from college. Suddenly they are harassed by a rusty ugly truck. Later on they see the truck at an old church where the driver seems to be dumping bodies into a drainage pipe. The truck races out and runs them off the road. The truck continues on, and Darry convinces Patricia to go back to investigate the pipe. What they find there sets off a series of horrors and killings.

This is a well done horror movie. Victor Salva has created a new evil in the movie universe. The first part is mostly just brother and sister interaction. Long and Philips have great sibling chemistry. They just feel like people who have known each other for all their lives.

The major problem I have is the motivation behind going to look for bodies. It's way too crazy to go back to the house of horrors if you don't have to. The sister was completely right. They are better to try to find some cops. They got run off by the truck, so the cops would have to go to the church to investigate. There could have been others at the church. It's more than the usual 'Don't go down there!' complaint.

I'm glad that they finally got the cops. Usually the cops never get call in these kinds of horror. It does lead to a well made series of kills by the monster. I wish the monster could look better, but it's pretty good for a B-movie horror. Both parts of the movie work on their own terms. The first is much more atmospheric. The second is more traditional run and hunt. If only they could set up better why the siblings went to investigate the church in the first place.