Jeepers Creepers 2001- Essential Horror Film
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0263488/
Image from the link above. Imdb, American Zoetrope 2001
I recently saw this film again, and it took me back. Jeepers Creepers is a memorable early 2000s horror film that is a bit shocking and features a mysterious and disturbing villian. The Creeper emerges to feed on humans every 23 years, and he consumes body parts to regenerate himself. The premise is that the Creeper scares his victims and then discovers if he wants to eat them.
The film stars Justin Long and Gina Philips as siblings heading home during a college break. Long is almost run off the road by the Creeper, who is then seen dumping bodies down a pipe by an abandoned church. Long and his sister visit the abandoned church while the Creeper is away, and Long falls into the pipe only to discover a basilica made of corpses. Long discovers the corpses of students he heard rumors about dying in a car wreck, and loses his mind when he watches a victim die.
The rest of the movie is action sequences and Long and his sister are helped by a clairvoyant woman who can see what the Creeper will do next. The film ends with a memorable and shocking scene that ties everything together. You will learn why it's called Jeepers Creepers.
The film itself starts with a bang and being a horror flick has a few grotesque and memorable scenes. The Creeper is sadistic and consumes body parts, decapitates victims and builds a shrine underground from bodies.
Jeepers Creepers plays on a record player in a memorable ending. The film as a great beginning and ending, and most of the middle is a cat and mouse game between the Creeper and the protagonists. I give it a 4.4/5 on my personal ranking scale due to a lack of gory scenes. The siblings pulled off a convincing act, and overall the pace of this movie is good. There are few on screen killings that make the viewer squeemish and a few insinuations of vivisection. Getting caught by the Creeper is a horrible prospect, and the atmosphere of the movie is a bit underplayed. The rural areas of the film could have been played up and expounded upon similar to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but they were not.
This film is a must see for horror fans. It's part of a series of movies which I have seen and cannot recommend. The sequels are a bit campy and do not capture the atmosphere of the original movie. I enjoy the nostalgia of this film, and was in college when it came out. I got it on VHS and watched it in the dorm. The opening sequence shook me, and I enjoyed the grotesque Creeper. Is the Creeper a demon? Is he an alien? You can read more online to get more information, but overall this is a good stand alone movie that doesn't need a sequel to be memorable.