Jeepers Creepers (2001)
Starring: Justin Long, Gina Phillips
Director: Victor Salva
Synopsis: Scariest horror movie for 10 years? Hardly!
Reviewed by: Ali Khan

It's difficult to outline the story of Jeepers Creepers - the film is so obtuse that by the end you are left wondering whether there was meant to be something more subliminal in the film and it passed you by. Unfortunately for the producers I for one didn't feel quite the urge to go for a repeat viewing.

Basically, teenage brother and sister are driving home from University through red neck America when they are first run off the road by an unidentified truck driver in his rusted out truck and then glance the same individual, this time parked near an abandoned church, throwing something resembling a body bag or two down a pipe. Inexplicably, Darry (Long) insists on getting to the bottom of the mystery and ends up finding a stash of well-preserved bodies plastering the walls and ceiling in an underground hideout. One of the body bags turns out to be an almost dead boy with his sewn-up stomach barely containing whatever quivers under his skin.

From this promising beginning the film becomes ever more baffling. Darry and sister Trish (Gina Phillips) manage to alert the police but the following two-thirds of the film are lost amongst a quagmire of psychic women, riddles about cats and a song called Jeepers Creepers. Meanwhile the truck driver turns out to be some kind of creature but apart from the fact that he apparently gets to feed on people every 23rd spring for 23 days and eats people's eyes in order to see, devours their lungs to breathe, and uses fear to choose who will be his next meal we are given no other explanations. Where he came from, what the bodies in the underground lair are and what happens after the 23 years is left completely open.

Considering the fact that the film comes from Francis Ford Coppola's production company and that it was given a thumping endorsement by Time Out as being the 'best American horror movie for ten years', Jeepers Creepers flatters to deceive but ultimately is nothing more than a mediocre to poor film. The first half hour is by far the best part of the film entirely because it borrows heavily from such classic films as Duel and Texas Chainsaw Massacre and that for any horror film buff is rich territory. There is a definite attempt to tap into the uneasy calm of a lonely country road so that you get a taste of the unhinging effect that TCM had in its first few scenes. The attack by the unseen truck driver is also unsettling - again the feeling of menace coming out of an environment that appears tranquil and unthreatening - remember Hitchcock's memorable crop duster scene in North by North West.

But soon after, the film abandons the suggestive horror mode in favour of an entirely forgettable monster film. Once the cat is let out of the bag and the audience are shown the creature, any pretence of tension and scares are abandoned. Instead we focus on a new movie maniac that bears an uncanny resemblance to the Creature from the Black Lagoon, without half the personality or charm. Never scary, frequently unnecessarily bewildering and unfortunately definite sequel material.