Jeepers Creepers II is a hair better than its predecessor, but a hair better than shit is still shit.
As the film’s opening crawl informs us, the flying, winged Creeper feasts for 23 days every 23rd spring. We begin on day 22 of such a season, when the youngest son of farmer Ray Wise (TV’s Twin Peaks) is snatched up out of the cornfield and carried away. On the next day, a school bus toting a high school state champion basketball team and assorted cheerleaders blows a tire on the near-deserted highway, thanks to the Creeper’s well-aimed special brand of homemade ninja stars.
With nowhere to go, the bus serves as a Hometown Buffet for the hungry Creeper, at first picking off (or up) all the adults, until Wise shows up for some heavy-duty harpoonin’ with his truck-mounted, jerry-rigged Post Puncher 500.
JCII has its moments, but only a precious few, and fleeting at that. This installment gives the monster far more screen time, but it’s simply the same thing over and over: Creeper attacks; Creeper flies away; Creeper attacks again. If we were supposed to empathize with the characters, writer/director/convicted pedophile Victor Salva could’ve picked another group besides cocky athletes. For my money, the Creeper can’t kill them fast enough.
But then, Salva’s camera wouldn’t be able to linger on their shirtless, hairless upper bodies. It’s hard to believe the film’s overt homoeroticism isn’t at least semi-intentional, what with all the bare chests, the multiple scenes of guys peeing together and dialogue like “You want to poke it with sticks?” and “Can’t they just whip out the jack and pump this mutha up?”
I liked Wise, but then again, I like him in just about anything. I also liked Nicki Aycox (Joy Ride 2: Dead Ahead) as the Girl Who Somehow Has It All Explained to Her in Dreams, but then again, that’s probably because she’s the only hot one. But any horror film that delivers such an illogical ending (so chop it up already, whydon’tcha!) and christens its characters with names like “Double D” and “Big K” deserves a flat-out F. —Rod Lott