Jeepers Creepers

(2001) ***

This movie had the chance to rock like no other, because it starts off pretending to be a Murderous Hillbilly movie (one of my least favorite subgenres), and then turns out to be a Monster movie (one of my favorites). And it's a good monster, too: a menacing dude in a tattered duster coat and wide-brimmed hat who is actually a weird bat-winged revenant. In the right hands this could be a modern classic, or a viciously good sleeper like Dog Soldiers, but instead it languishes in the mid-levels, worried that some nerd writer with fifteen or so readers might slap it below three stars on his scary little blog.

Justin Long and his sister are commuting through part of America best known for death by chainsaw when they're menaced by a loud, rusty truck (basically the utility version of the car from The Car). Later they see the truck parked by an old house, and in a marvelous exhibition of bad timing spy the tall, grimy driver unloading a couple body-sized bundles that he then drops into a big pipe in his yard. Really, monster? You couldn't have put the pipe in the back?

Another scene of panicked driving and loud honking ensues, after which Justin Long makes the unforgivable suggestion that they go and look in the pipe to see if anyone needs help, rather than get in the car and drive out of the horror movie that they've obviously wandered into. Later in the pipe-investigating process, his sister has the gall to refer to "that thing in the movie that the characters do that makes the audience hate them," to which I yelled "that thing happened five minutes ago you idiots!" I also suggested out loud that the PC would never do this, just to ruffle some feathers.

After being freaked the hell out by the contents of the Creeper's lair, the kids stop by a local diner and make a nuisance of themselves like only two city kids in the sticks can do. Awkward looks aplenty. At this point I was hoping for a siege to begin; it seemed like the perfect setup. The two youngsters "marked" by this back woods critter a la Pumpkinhead, various diner customers getting yanked out of windows, etc. Well, nothing doing. Instead there's more time on the road with some cops, then a stop at a crazy cat lady's house, then hanging out with another gang of cops in the next county, then some jibber jabber with the local psychic, jibber jabber that hints that some sort of big reveal is coming. But much like my last movie the big reveal's a bit of a fake out, and it's framed by a hilarious scene of the monster just hanging out in his lair, sitting at his work table enjoying a hobby. I'm serious. When it's Jamie Gumb in Silence of the Lambs it can be scary, but it kind of takes the edge off the mysterious demon from Hell.

So it's worth checking out, and while it sports some of the worst stupid-things-you-can-do-in-a-horror-movie, I must note for the scorecard that it also has one of the smart ones (run him over with your car, but not just once). Ultimately the potential of the premise is diluted by the fractured, episodic story structure. The resulting experience is best summed up by something I noticed at the crazy cat lady's house: there just aren't enough cats.