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JEEPERS
CREEPERS II
5/10
aka Jeepers Creepers 2 : USA 2002* (released 2003) : Victor SALVA
: 103 mins
2001’s Jeepers Creepers
was a terrific surprise: an economic and imaginative low-budget horror-movie
that struck the right balance between chills and laughs. Unexpected box-office
success made a sequel inevitable, even though part of the the film’s joy
lay in its elegant self-containment. How could writer-director Victor
Salva possibly continue the story without losing what made the first movie
special?
And the answer is… he couldn’t. Though watchable, Jeepers II only very
rarely reaches the heights of the first picture – this feels more like
a slightly lazy cash-in. Where JC1 was direct and relentless, JC2
is more diffuse, cobbled-together and incoherent. The basic problem
is an excess of potential victims: this time around, the Creeper (Jonathan
Breck) – a winged, seemingly indestructible demon of unspecified origin
who ‘feeds’ on human prey for 23 days every 23 years – targets a basketball
team returning home from a successful state championship. (Incidentally,
‘The Creeper’, although never referred to by that phrase in either movie,
must be the most inappropriately-named screen psycho in movie history
- his zooming around, both in the air and on the ground, is about as far
from ‘creeping’ as possible.)
After sabotaging their tyres, the Creeper periodically swoops down to pick off
the kids and their teachers one by one. But with the best part of two
dozen passengers on the bus, none are given the time or space to assert
their personality beyond the level of horror-teen stereotype, and thus
give the audience something to latch on to. It also doesn’t help that
the kid who emerges with anything like a distinctive personality – malcontent
star-player Scott (Eric Nenninger) – is an obnoxious egotist with (at
least) borderline racist tendencies. Another, a cheerleader named Minxy
(Nicki Lynn Aycox) turns out to have extremely handy paranormal powers:
in her dreams, she is told key details of the Creeper’s habits – meaning
she spends most of the movie spouting exposition for the benefit of viewers
didn’t catch the first Jeepers picture.
And as if the bus-full of youngsters (whose sporting abilities are never called
into play) wasn’t already too much to handle, Salva splits his focus by
repeatedly cutting away to Taggart (Ray Wise), a farmer out for revenge
after seeing his son spirited away (in the nicely atmospheric prologue.)
When Taggart finally does make it to the school bus, his clashes with
the Creeper are played out in a lumberingly over-extended series of climaxes
– capped with a low-key epilogue that, like the film as a whole, doesn’t
quite hit the mark. Sequel duties now discharged, let’s hope the talented
Salva can move on, confirm the promise of the first Jeepers, and
abandon this franchise to the grim netherworld of straight-to-video-meisters.
30th August, 2003
(seen 29th August : Odeon, Chester)
* 2002 is the copyright year as given on the film’s end credits
by Neil
Young
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