Surprisingly canny chiller about a busload of high school students stranded on a lonely highway and besieged by a demonic creature (Jonathan Breck) hungry for human flesh. Director Victor Salva overcomes cardboard characterizations and effectively builds suspense through much of the film, resulting in some genuinely scary moments, before surrendering to a formulaic, shoot-by-numbers ending. Recurring gory violence, as well as much rough and vulgar language. A-IV -- adults, with reservations. (R) 2003
Full Review
A busload of high school students becomes a buffet spread for a demonic creature with the munchies for human flesh in the surprisingly canny chiller, "Jeepers Creepers 2" (United Artists).
Director Victor Salva overcomes cardboard characterizations, effectively building suspense through much of the film, offering some genuinely scary moments before surrendering to formulaic, shoot-by-numbers plot fillers.
Reining in the gore of the 2001 original, "Creepers 2" continues the grisly dietary exploits of the Creeper (Jonathan Breck), an ancient evil being -- a sort of cross between a burnt scarecrow and a giant bat -- who awakes from its hellish hibernation every 23 years and goes on a 23-day eating binge, choosing victims based on fear level and desired body parts.
The timing of its current ritual feeding frenzy could not have been more opportune, as a school bus transporting a victorious high school basketball team home from the state championship just happens to drive down the lonely stretch of country highway the Creeper haunts. It takes no time for the famished fiend to disable the bus and dispatch the adult chaperones, leaving the group of racially divided jocks -- and, duh, a trio of cheerleaders -- stranded like meals on wheels, without the use of their cell phones or the bus radio in the middle of movieland nowhere.
The rest of the film is an above-average B-movie, as the Creeper selects only certain teens, gorging on coed crudites. Unfortunately, the film looses its traction, quickly plummeting from suspenseful to silly, when the Creeper's high-protein feast is interrupted by the father (Ray Wise) of one of his earlier victims, who is hell-bent on exacting Ahab-like revenge on the implacable ghoul, using a homemade harpoon gun rigged to his pickup truck.
Produced under the aegis of Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope, "Creepers 2" is a cut above most popcorn horror flicks. Though containing some graphic violence, the narrative is neither dominated by gore, nor used only as a perfunctory measure on which hang scenes of an excessively sadistic nature. In fact, the most effective sequences are those which merely suggest the Creeper's presence rather than show him, building a spine-tingling sinister anticipation.
Regrettably, the film ill-advisedly abandons the much scarier arena of the audience's imagination, retreating to the routine predictability of special effects. By the film's end, much of its hard-earned fear has faded, turning its jeepers and creepers into ho-hum sleepers.
The story also suffers from the usual sketchy characterizations common to the genre, making it difficult for viewers to invest much emotion in their dilemma beyond a visceral fear; one cannot really feel for characters who are little more than hors d'oeuvres in varsity jackets.
The film plays with the campy charm of a 1950s' drive-in date movie (with much crasser language). Yet while the mutant-sized creatures of yesteryear reflected, almost subconsciously, the growing nuclear anxieties of the Cold War generation, the superfluously overt social references in "Creepers 2" -- playing such cards as racism and homophobia -- carry with them the heavy-handed scent of political correctness, and weigh the narrative down unnecessarily.
To its credit, the film does not exploit its youthful ensemble with gratuitous sex scenes, though much of the crude language is sexually laced.
However, given the director's criminal record -- Salva served prison time for child molestation -- the film's premise, involving a monster hungrily, almost lustfully, going after nubile teens takes on a truly repellent sense of creepiness.
Due to recurring gory violence, as well as much rough and vulgar language, the USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-IV -- adults, with reservations. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R -- restricted.
Movies have been evaluated by the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishop's Office for Film and Broadcasting according to artistic
merit and moral suitability. The reviews include the USCCB rating,
the Motion Picture Association of America rating, and a brief
synopsis of the movie.
The classifications are as follows:
- A-I -- general patronage;
- A-II -- adults and adolescents;
- A-III -- adults;
- A-IV**
- L -- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. L replaces the previous classification, A-IV.
- O -- morally offensive.
** Discontinued classification. All archived movies that were originally in the A-IV category are now classified as L.