MOVIE REVIEW

Jeepers Creepers 2  (2003)

Starring: Jonathan Breck, Ray Wise, Nicki Aycox
Directors: Victor Salva

Rating: R

Studio: MGM

Release Date: 8.29.03

Review Posted: 9.15.03

Spoilers: Minor

By Sara Michelle Fetters

Only Thing Scary is "Jeepers" Director’s Infatuation

Living up to its title, there is actually something undeniably creepy about the horror sequel “Jeepers Creepers 2.” Unfortunately, that general malignant unease has absolutely nothing to do with the movie’s title character, the Creeper (Jonathan Breck). Sure the winged reptilian-like creature with a face only Freddy Krueger could love has his scarier aspects. But overall, he’s just not enough of a presence to generate a single full-blown fright.

No, the creepiest thing is the way director Victor Salva (“Nature of the Beast”) is so intent on fetishizing the nubile young men in the film. Their shirtless bodies dripping in masculine prowess, the director photographs them all with such unabashed infatuation that, despite the fact almost all of them are quite attractive, his constant flirtation with the adolescent form is more than a bit unsettling. Even when one boy finds his body gruesomely severed from his body, Salva’s camera lingers over every glistening lump and bicep as if trying to find some Renaissance-like poetry in the dead kid’s twitching flesh. It’s horrific, but for all the wrong reasons.

Granted, this sort of thing has been following the director around ever since the revelation came to light with the release 1995’s “Powder” that he was an accused child molester. With that being the case, it might possible I’m reading far too much into the director’s infatuation with young men, refusing to let the filmmaker’s work stand on its own away from those allegations. Still, there are scenes in all of Salva’s post-“Powder” work that can’t help but bring questions to mind, and the cavalcade of fleshy young hunks in this film certainly doesn’t do anything to put those insinuations to rest.

Of course, trying to figure out where the director’s motivations are is far more interesting than discussing the movie itself. A sequel to 2001’s surprisingly successful original, “Jeepers Creepers 2” contains all of the first picture’s flaws and very few of its successes. In the previous flick, two kids happen upon the horrific layer of a serial killer who appears to have been eating pieces of his victims for years on end. Stalked by the killer, the two attempt to out-race and outwit their supernatural stalker as they make their way through the barren country highways of the mid-west.

As long as the Creeper remained an enigma, a lurking presence always right behind our heroes, “Jeepers Creepers” was a surprisingly resilient and successful horror film. Holding much in common with Steven Spielberg’s “Duel” and Tobe Hooper’s seminal “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” Salva showed amazing restraint and joi de vive fashioning a truly terrifying ride. Unfortunately, he then goes about blowing himself out of the water in the second half, showcasing the spectacularly un-spooky Creeper in all his winged-glory. What was a satisfyingly bloodcurdling B-movie instead turned into a turgid “Nightmare on Elm Street/Friday the 13th/Halloween” knock-off, and as such ended up as nothing more than a complete waste of time.

The sequel picks up one day after events in the original with a bus full of high school basketball players heading home after a big win; a rag tag group of teachers, cheerleaders and the team support staff along for the ride. When their bus becomes the victim of foul play and with their radio not working worth a darn, the team is stranded along the side of the road with no way to call for help. As the adults are picked off one by one, the team starts to realize that they are at the vicious mercy of a lethal killer that has his eyes set on devouring them all – literally.

As a cast system takes shape, the students start fighting amongst themselves, arguing the merits of “feeding” the weaker elements to the leather-skinned Creeper. All this while, perky blonde Minxie (Nicki Aycox, “Slap Her… She’s French”) starts having psychic dreams about prior day’s victim Darius (part one star Justin Long, in a bizarrely inept cameo) where she learns all about their menacing stalker. With this knowledge, she tells the others that all they have to do is survive until morning, the Creeper at the end of his 23-day feeding fest as soon as A.M. dawns.

Unlike the first film, Salva makes virtually no attempt to hide his creature this time around. Don’t expect any subtle frights; “Jeepers Creepers 2” is a film of all bombast with just a pinch of fury. While that doesn’t make it terrible by any means, Salva knows how to stage and edit an action/chase sequence with the best of them, that doesn’t mean it’s very entertaining, either.

Not that his script helps matters. The sequel displays all the intelligence of a flea, dropping characters and ideas at a moments notice never to pick them up ever again. It’s also full of a puerile homophobia that’s near insulting. While I’m sure Salva is desperately trying to bring to the fore the typically jingoistic heterosexuality that male high school athletics can revel in, he doesn’t have the grace or skill to make this foray into the topic anything other than impertinent. And while Travis Schiffner (in his feature film debut) does his best with his schizophrenically emaciated is-he-or-isn’t-he character, Salva gives the lad no chance to make anything out of the role by dropping the entire subject suddenly and without notice.

Very few of the other actors make any sort of impression. Only the great “Twin Peaks” character actor Ray Wise – still looking haunted by the death of Laura Palmer – makes an indelible imprint, his final scene a chilling portrait of a man who’s lost everything and now sits isolated in a web of constant retribution. In fact, if “Jeepers Creepers 2” had instead focused upon him and his plight, Salva might have had himself a fine little thriller. It’s one of those head scratching might-of-beens that hover around so many movies in this day and age, another reminder that the golden age of filmmaking might be gone forever.

So all I was left with was the camera swirling longingly all over that (admittedly) luscious young male flesh. Reading too much into it or not, Salva has a thing for photographing young guys and there is no two ways around it. For a supposed scary motion picture, to be left queasy by someone’s apparent pedophilia is not a good way to earn fans. More importantly, it’s a bad way to make a movie.

Rating: ê1/2   (out of 4)

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