JEEPERS CREEPERS 2

Scifind.co.uk rating - 3 - out of 5.

Reviewed By: Paul Mount

Starring: Ray Wise, Jonathan Breck, Travis Schiffner, Billy Aaron Brown, Nicki Aycox,

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It’s only occasionally that a film arrives on DVD after you’ve spent some time with it at the multiplex and you’reforced to rethink it a bit. Such is the case with JEEPERS CREEPERS 2, Victor Salva’s sequel to his surprise horror hit from 2001. What seemed like an entertaining, loud and creepy horror thriller at first actually present itself as a silly, noisy, rather vacuous piece of cheesy exploitation when you watch it again in the privacy of your own home. I mean, it’s the same film - but it just goes to show that some movies don’t need or deserve to be watched again. Because the more you watch JEEPERS CREEPERS 2 - and I’ve seen it three times now - the worse it gets.

Following directly on from the first film, we find it’s day 23 of the Creeper’s 23 day reign of terror. The flying winged beast forces a coach full of irritating teen jocks and cheerleaders to pitch up on a highway in the middle of nowhere - yep, the old ‘I can’t get a signal on my cellphone’ cliché is present and correct here - and as night falls so do the occupants of the bus as the Creeper - surely one of the silliest maniac monsters in recent cinema history - picks out his favourites and prepares to stock his larder. What follows is ninety-nine minutes of lazy scripting, poor dialogue and some quite neat thrills. There’s no denying that there’s tension here - the old ‘base-under-seige’ storyline is always good for a shiver - but the cast of characters are so bland and uninteresting it’s sometimes difficult to work out who’s just died and who’s going to survive, much less care. Most of the teens are pretty unsympathetic anyway and the shoe-horning of a ‘psychic dreams’ subplot for one of the characters just so the script can fill in a few blanks and remind viewers of the original, is creaking and unconvincing and poorly-handled.

The Creeper may look ludicrous but he’s an unrelenting and indestructible foe. This tends to make most of the cast’s attempts to escape him pretty pointless and when he’s finally brought down by vengeful father Ray Wise we know he’s probably not down for good. The coda - set 22 years hence (but with no concessions to this visually) - is silly and unnecessary and rings this rather daft film to a conclusion. JEEPERS CREEPERS 2 isn’t really a bad film - it’s competent enough technically but it seems a bit pointless and the whole enterprise rather reeks of cheap cash-in. Shame.

THE DISC: Daylight scenes are nice and bright and the night time scenes look good. The sound mix handles the bangs and scratches and screams well enough and there are a raft of worthwhile extras including some interesting behind-the-scenes stuff, deleted scenes and a lively commentary featuring the cast and the director. Probably a better package than the movie really deserves."