Are You With Us?: Jeepers Creepers
By Ryan Mazie
August 15, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
With a catchy title and a well-cut, atmospheric trailer, Jeepers Creepers had the biggest Labor Day opening weekend at the time (a spot that is now held by another horror movie, the Halloween remake). Never having seen the movie before, and knowing it had mediocre reviews, I was not expecting much.
While the first 20 minutes had exceeded my expectations, the next 70 minutes put them back in place due to stupidity, stupidity, and stupidity.
Jeepers opens with a bickering brother (Justin Long in one of his first roles) and sister (Gina Phillips in her first and last big role) driving home the scenic country route from college for spring break. The first few minutes of the car ride are full of entertaining banter that seems less strained for cheap laughs and more natural. Both of the actors work well off each other, and if it wasn’t for the man-eating Creeper, this might have been a tender, coming-of-age road trip movie. Alas, a creepy old truck nearly rams our two siblings off the road in a tensely terrifying sequence.
The siblings are funny and smart and deal with the incident as realistically as possible when it comes to horror movie world. Unfortunately, they later see the truck further up the road parked in front of an abandoned old church (that can never be good), dumping what looks a body down a drainpipe.
Remember, that smart road trip movie I was hoping for? Not going to happen.
Jeepers Creepers quickly escalates into an average horror movie with characters that have below-average IQs. Our collegiate siblings must have had someone else take their SATs for them, because one move is dumber than the next.
The intriguing daytime road rage sequence is the closest thing we get to horrified throughout the film. The rest is a nighttime slaughter-fest that is more concerned with being more icky than ghostly.
The Creeper’s design is unique enough for the movie to stand-apart, yet utterly absurd. Why does he wear a trench jacket? No clue. What’s the deal with the wings? Your guess is as good as mine. When does he have the time to preserve his victims? A better question would be “What’s the point?”
The motives of the Creeper being some sort of demon that gets unleashed every 23 years to feed off humans for 23 days has barely enough substance to it to work.
Justin Long and Gina Phillips are fine in their roles, but when it comes to horror, the success lies less in the acting and more in the screenplay, which starts running on fumes after the opening sequence.
Director and writer Victor Salva uses few “jump scares,” thankfully, and plays off more on tension. The atmosphere is appropriately dreary, and the kills are gory, but not profusely. Salva’s main problem with Jeepers Creepers is the poor pacing. The time speeds up and slows down so quickly, that you start wondering if this movie takes place over one night or an entire weekend.
Salva’s script turns from a fairly witty endeavor into a horror movie cliché checklist: Crazy old lady? Check. Hick locals? Check. Idiot cops? Check. Non-working cell phone? Check. Wise, token black woman? Check.
My biggest gripe with the film, though, was that the Creeper attacks every time the song “Jeepers Creepers” comes on. While old songs can certainly be creepy, the upbeat tune is more silly than scary. Music can make or break a scene, and in this case, it is the latter.
Still, for 90 minutes, you could do worse. Jeepers Creepers, while dumb, is never boring, which is the worst thing I think a horror movie can be.
Budgeted at a scant $10 million, Jeepers Creepers opened to $13.1 million ($18.5 million adjusted) and $15.8 million over the whole long weekend. With $37.9 million ($53.6 million today) in the end, the film didn’t have any legs to go “Jeepers Creepers!” about. Overseas was a non-factor.
With a typical no-name cast and crew, Jeepers Creepers did have one notable exception of talent when it came to the credits – Francis Ford Coppola. Credited as an executive producer, I am not sure exactly what Coppola’s involvement was, but director Victor Salva said that he was the one who championed a sequel. After purposely making the Creeper’s eating schedule take place every 23 years so there would be no second installment, Coppola found a loophole, suggesting that the next film could take place within the same 23 days as a direct continuation.
Costing a little more and making a little less, Jeepers Creepers II surprisingly did not spawn a threequel. Why? Because it was backed by the two worst film companies possible: the bankrupt MGM and the defunct United Artists. Funding immediately ceased on the next installment that was to be shot back-to-back with a fourth. However, with MGM in a slightly better situation today, Jeepers Creepers 3: Cathedral (I’m shocked that with so many ‘e’s in the title, that the ‘3’ wasn’t somehow incorporated) is scheduled for a 2013 debut according to IMDb. Salva said that the third film is to segue into a potential TV series, although I can’t see how that can possibly work (unless each episode is a day in the 23 day feeding cycle, which could be pretty cool).
However, nearly a decade later, I am not sure if anybody is really looking forward to another sequel in a franchise that is certainly past its prime (as if it even really ever had one). Critics responded to Jeepers Creepers better than other teen-led flicks like Final Destination, Urban Legend, and I Know What You Did Last Summer at the time. Ranking at 45% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, most of the critics noted the film’s promising opening that only deflates as the running time ticks on.
Not scary good, scary bad, or scary at all, Jeepers Creepers is as generic as the rest. But at least with a satisfying ending that serves more purpose than as a sequel set-up, the creepiness factor is high enough to be worth the rental.
Verdict: Not With Us
4 out of 10