Combining a road horror movie with an iconic monster, JEEPERS CREEPERS is a film that keeps tension throughout its entire runtime. The look of the film combined with the road aspect makes it feel like a throwback film that could have been shot in the mid 1980s or the early aughts. That being said, the movie did rely on some cliches, diabolus ex machina and dumb character decisions to get this movie going. That stuff annoys me. I did like the meta aspect where one character points out how if they were in a movie those decisions would be stupid. While I liked the natural conversations the characters had early on, I had some issues as the movie went on. Every horror movie icon has their equal. Michael Myers has Laurie Strode and Dr. Loomis as an example. As this movie went on I never felt that the creeper was threatened by Justin Long or Gina Phillips' characters. That made where the movie was going more predictable. I may like the first half a little more than the second half but I do applaud the film for going with a more horrific ending for one character in particular. I have a lot of nitpicks but the film never loses intrigue or tension.
Synopsis: After making a horrific discovery in the basement of an old abandoned church, Trish (Gina Philips) and her brother Darry (Justin Long) watch their routine road trip home from college turn into a heart-stopping race for their lives. They find themselves the chosen prey of an indestructible force that relentlessly pursues them and gives a new and chilling meaning to the old song "Jeepers Creepers."
The film starts out with Trish (Gina Phillips) and Darry (Justin Long) driving home from college for spring break. Trish and Darry are brother and sister. Early on I enjoy some of the natural conversations between them. They play a game where they have to give their interpretations of what license plates say. Trish is keeping score and is up 5-2 at the start of the film. They have this conversation about Darry bringing home laundry for his mother to do. He talks about how he brings it home to give his mother something to do, otherwise she'll be depressed and think he doesn't need her anymore. A giant brown truck with a foghorn comes up behind them and starts tailgating and eventually Darry is able to move out of the way. The first act of this film has shades of DUEL. I like how the movie progresses to just someone in a truck, to seeing the creeper is a killer, and finally showing the creeper to be a supernatural monster.
Justin Long as Darry
Gina Phillips as Trish
Darry and Trish eventually drive by an old church and see the man from the truck putting things wrapped in sheets down a large chute pipe in the ground. The truck driver sees them and pursues them again, and runs them off the road. Here is where Darry makes a stupid movie decision wanting to go back to the church and see what actually happened. He eventually lowers himself into the pipe. A decision which has Trish saying meta lines like this is where people watching a scary movie would hate you right now. Darry is eventually scared in the pipe by rats and Trish drops him to the bottom.
There are some great suspense moments and reveals in this sequence. Darry eventually unwraps one of the sheets to find a man with his chest stitched up. Then in a great camera shot, you see bodies everywhere in the background, blocked together like something out of a painting. Darry recognizes two of the stitched together bodies as a woman and a man whom he had told a story about earlier. Darry eventually gets out of the pipe and scares Trish by going to the window all of a sudden. A great jump scare. Darry has this traumatized look on his face and can't speak for a moment. While at times the movie seemed to want to have its cake and eat it too, in terms of having characters have natural moments and doing dumb things to compliment the script, that moment felt real.
As the film goes on I like different locations and transitions that make this more into a road movie. Darry and Trish go to two different police stations, the house of an old cat lady, and there is another great road chase later in the film. The cops don't believe Darry at first, and I can't blame them. The amount of bodies in that underground location near the church had to have amounted to hundreds and it looked like something out of a nightmare. Eventually the cops follow both Trish and Darry and the creeper shows up and kills both of them. Some great gore here as one of the cops is killed with an axe. Darry and Trish make their way to the house of the old lady who chastises them for wanting to call the police. She is afraid of having her cats taken. The creeper eventually shows up to her house and kills her. Now what I liked about both of these sequences was how well done they are from a technical perspective. The scene where you see the creeper drop onto the cop car in the background was great. The sound design and visuals when the old lady goes back into her house after the creeper escapes her gunshots and then you see the flash and just hear the loud sound of the gunshots. You see the old lady walking back the porch door and it turns out the creeper is just leading her behind him.
Jonathan Breck as the Creeper is one of the most unique looking most iconic movie monsters of the 21st century
Spoiler Section
The next car chase involves Trish trying to ram into the creeper who uses its agility to get around her before she eventually swerves the car to hit him. She runs him over repeatedly but eventually they run away when a wing is shown coming out from The Creeper's back. This is when they go to the next county police station. Here we meet the psychic, Jezelle, who earlier had called Darry on the phone at the diner. What I like about some of the mystery and intrigue in this film is that it actually heightens the tension. Jezelle tells Darry about the cat lady before they have met her, making it great foreshadowing when they do meet her. As the creeper gets developed more you wonder why he is eating people. Jezelle eventually gives the story that he comes back to feed on every 23rd spring. The Creeper feeds on organs of human beings, but selects them by their fear. So we have a very NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET situation. While I wish you could see more of the kills in the police station, once again the tension is frequent. You see the Creeper eating one cop in a cell but then you hear the Sheriff talking to the cops in the prison block on the radio. The cops talk about how they keep shooting the Creeper and how it won't die. I enjoy the imagination of how that scene would play out. The ending, though predictable, is great because it doesn't pull any punches. You usually see characters make it out of a struggle in many movies and this one isn't afraid to let one of them die.
Patricia Belcher brings intrigue and warmth to her role as Jezelle, the psychic
Darry, with his eyes taken by the Creeper at the end of the film, what a lasting image
What is a bit disappointing is knowing that Gina Phillips is not in the sequel. I would have liked to have seen her character come back and challenge the Creeper. That was the missing ingredient in this film to me. As I said in my thesis, every horror movie monster has their equal. The Creeper didn't get that in this film, though I found enough enjoyment in the brother-sister dynamic and trying to see how they were going to get away. That only carries so far though and I wish this film would have given a better way of vanquishing the Creeper instead of just Trish trying to sacrifice herself. The film makes up for some of the dumb character actions and diabolus ex machina moments, like the phone battery being dead when Darry tries to make a call. The film makes up for this with nonstop tension. The technical elements are great. Great makeup and gore effects, well shot, great orchestral score by Bennett Salvay, and incredible sound effects and editing make this a scary film. I really am looking forward to watching the sequel to see if it expands on the mythology and gives us someone to combat the creature better.
Rating: 7/10
Trivia: Victor Salva has always said the Creeper legend is complete fiction but the scene where Trish and Darry witness the Creeper dumping a body down a well by an abandoned church was inspired by the case of Dennis DePue, a former Michigan Property Assessor who murdered his wife and was seen by witnesses near an old school house with a bloody sheet. Two witnesses also recall DePue speeding past them in a van and eventually tailing them and riding their bumper for several miles. The case was also profiled on a 1990 episode of UNSOLVED MYSTERIES.
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