Jeepers Creepers II [2003]

It’s hard to tell is this part better than the first one, but one thing is for sure, this part is more brutal than the first one. So, two years after the original, Victor Salva decided to bring back our new favorite villain: Creeper. Although the whole school bus thing was supposed to be a sub-plot, Victor eventually loved the idea so much that he used it for the entire movie. This is something that helped with the atmosphere immensely and it also helped the movie avoid the usual sequel traps. Set in a relatively closed environment (school bus and its surroundings) and running in real time, Jeepers Creepers II added this sense of emergency to the mix. Not to mention the fact that the Creeper is now featured heavily, so we can enjoy in his glorious evil looks much more. Upgraded to a full-time villain, worthy of its comic-book counterparts, he’s scarier than ever. We learn more about him and his rules, but we also got a good counterweight to this with the character of Jack Taggart, adding revenge motive to this stirring pot.

Every 23 years for 23 days it gets to eat. Day 22: Happy that they have won the championship, a group of high-school kids is traveling back home in their school bus. Driving through the night, suddenly something explodes. A shuriken made out of human bone just pierced one of the wheels. This means something bad is about to happen. This is the last day of the feast and human flesh is the only thing that will satisfy his hunger.

As you probably guessed this is another guilty pleasure, so don’t expect some convoluted plot or mesmerizing dialogue. Actually, this movie features a lot more comedy than the first part. Some of it was intentional and some of it, not so much. When you combine this with suspense and great visuals, you get one hell of a ride. The whole good vs evil motive, represented through the confrontation between Taggart and Creeper, further cemented the movie’s structure and made it much more digestible. Same as in the original Jeepers Creepers, cinematography is phenomenal, with those long shots of environment, corn fields and what not. In the end, I have to mention Salva’s history. While he was making Clownhouse, Salva made a 12-year-old girl engage in a fellatio and filmed the whole thing. He was sentenced to three years in prison and after serving his time, continued making movies. We’ll just have to lump him in with Roman, Woody and the others artists with extremely wrong and disgusting moral convictions, but undeniable talent.

Director: Victor Salva

Cast: Ray Wise, Jonathan Breck, Justin Long, Eric Nenninger, Nicki Aycox, Marieh Delfino, Diane Delano

Rating:

Fun Facts: Jonathan Breck had to spend as many as 3-5 hours in the makeup chair to be transformed into The Creeper. He was done up to look blacker because Victor Salva wanted a scarier looking Creeper for the sequel.

IMDb Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0301470/