The first twenty minutes of Jeepers Creepers is deceiving — it actually appears to be a decent film.
There are several frightening scenes and the director actually manages to pique your interest enough to convince you to remain in your seat to find out what happens.
Unfortunately, it’s all downhill from there.
But first, the beginning.
Jeepers Creepers kicks off with siblings Darry (Ed’s Justin Long) and Trish (Gina Philips) embarking on a road trip home from college. In true horror movie fashion, the majority of their drive takes place on a deserted, lonely highway.
Right from the start, we’re treated to a great chase scene, complete with some fancy driving. This works nicely, as it gets the audience warmed up and ready for the mayhem that is certain to follow.
Darry and Trish veer off the highway and stumble upon an old church, where they see a scarecrow- like figure (the Creeper) dumping large, white objects down the sewer.
Like any horror movie characters, they decide to investigate — turns out the white objects are dead bodies, wrapped in sheets.
In an act of even greater stupidity, Darry decides to go in for a closer look and, naturally, falls into the sewer himself.
This is where it turns ugly, in more ways than one. Turns out the Creeper has created a cave of bodies down there. As Darry sifts through their remains, a gut-wrenching display of mucus, blood and gory stitches ensues.
Fortunately, Darry manages to make it out alive. After the gruesome discovery of the bodies, Darry and Trish make their way into town to tell the cops.
Of course a troupe of Barney Fife wannabes show up and to no one's surprise, they don't believe them. The only person who does seem to believe them is the nutty town psychic.
After their attempts fail to get the police to pursue the Creeper, Darry and Trish head back to the open road, with the killer fast in pursuit.
More time is spent in the car running from the bad guy than killing, searching, hunting and scaring.
When Jeepers Creepers finally winds down, more questions than answers remain. Most notably, you will wonder how a movie determined to be so good, turns out to be so awful.
The actors, to their credit, try to make it work.
Gina Philips does a fine job as the bossy sister who is probably more scared than she ever lets on. Justin Long holds his own as the easily freaked out brother, Darry.
In fact, the two up-and-comers manage to make you believe that their screams are real — and they probably are.
If you had signed up to do this movie and then saw how horribly it came out, you’d probably scream as well.
Grade: C-
R, 91 minutes
