Jeepers Creepers (2001)

Damn it. After hearing all the hype in Fango and on the net about this one, I really had my hopes up. Supposedly this flick was a return to the great monster flicks of the early eighties and a much needed change from the current onslaught of crappy, ultra-hip, teeny bop slashers like "Valentine" and the "Scream" trilogy. After this one though, I think I'm pretty much done with expecting a flick to actually live up to the hype surrounding it. On the way home from college a brother and sister are nearly ran off a secluded country road by a large, beat up truck. Some time later down the road, they see the same truck parked at an old ruined church with the driver sticking what looks like a human body down a huge pipe in the ground. After they stupidly investigate what they have just seen, they are soon chased by the crazed driver who turns out not to be a man, but rather a lizard/bird/man thing that can seemingly regenerate itself through whatever victims body part it digests. Whew.

The rest of the flick is just one long, drawn out chase scene between the two kids and the "Creeper", treating us to lots of annoying dialogue and even more annoying characters. The film opened up ok with the pipe scene which was pretty suspenseful, and the initial car chase stuff...but after the first thirty minutes things just fell extremely flat. Whatever suspense there was initially was long gone by the second half of this one. Acting wise the brother and sister team had some decent chemistry between the two of them, but did they have to be such a pair of smart-asses? Their cute little verbal wars got to be extremely annoying after awhile as did the sisters constant bitching and moaning...just shut up already! And I won't even mention that damn psychic lady, why the hell did she not die? She was only introduced to try and explain what the creature was, which was something I thought the filmmakers were trying to avoid in the first place in terms of keeping some mystery surrounding it. Aargh. The "Creeper" costume itself looked pretty cool, as I'm always a sucker for a good rubber suit. It's just that the night scenes with the monster were so damn dark I could hardly make anything out. Just as I was about to fall asleep my spirits were raised in the police station scene with the monster stuck in the building with about 30 cops armed to the teeth. I remember thinking, "now I'm gonna see some action" but no...not a damn thing happened! How can you have thirty gun packing cops and a pissed of creature all stuck in the same room, and not a damn thing happens! Jeez. Sorta like the entire film huh?