Jeepers Creepers

Taking a lead – not to mention several entire scenes – from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Terminator and Duel – Jeepers Creepers opens with a bang, playing for the first half-hour like a genuinely creepy promise of unspeakable terror in wait, but quickly and inexplicably changes tack to a rather ridiculous SFX-overkill orgy.

Plot: driving home to college for spring break, brother and sister Darryl (Long) and Trish (Phillips) find their sibling rivalry most rudely interrupted by a mysterious rusty old van, well past its NCT date, trying to run them off the road. Because this is a horror flick, the two protagonists make the rather retarded move of following said rustbucket home. As a result, they see a Stetson-wearing individual dumping body bags down a waste pipe and in no time Darryl and Trish find themselves with a menacing cloaked figure in pursuit.

So far, so good. Everything is filmed in a grainy and tatty aesthetic intentionally reminiscent of Texas Chainsaw Massacre – it’s all filmed in real time, which adds to the tension. Equally, the script contrives rather cleverly that the nice preppy leads open all the wrong doors and don’t quite make it to the telephone – so there’s plenty by way of things that go bump in the night.

Unfortunately, the movie undercuts its inherent fear-factor by unwisely heading into supernatural territory and going all Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Hence, the killer turns out to be a pathetic lump of old latex, the like of which hasn’t been witbessed since the abominable Wishmaster. While such a tone change just about worked in the context of the ludicrous histrionics proffered by From Dusk To Dawn, here the remaining proceedings are utterly join-the-dots, not to mention déja vu.

There’s a police-station shootout, the inevitable ‘monster gets hit by car only to regenerate itself completely’ moment, and a spectacularly signposted twist in the tale – in other words, you’ve seen it all before, but in better movies and with infinitely more convincing villains.

Obviously, this is all the more frustrating in a movie with such a promising opening half-hour. Still, it’s recommended to those of you who still find fairground ghost-trains an experience in unimaginable terror.