Review #106: Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003)


This review was originally written in October 2020.

October Movie Review #23- Jeepers Creepers 2

Another great movie from this franchise!

I definitely didn't enjoy it as much as the first one, but it was still a competently made horror film with plenty of surprises and some really fun and badass moments. I think the majority of my (comparative) lack of enjoyment came from the fact that it's just kind of more of the same; even if the action itself was better than the previous movie (some of it was, some of it wasn't) it's a known entity at this point so it has less impact than it had the first time around. Where the first movie was a roller coaster of action, suspense, mystery, and intrigue, this one is basically just action and suspense; while those aren't bad, it did feel like this one was lacking something.

Another thing that I think needs addressing is that this movie has some very bothersome homophobia and racism throughout. I know that the homophobia can be explained away with "It was a product of its time" or "That's how actual teenagers would act" and the racism comes from a character who ultimately turns out to be a villain and doesn't have a happy ending, but I wouldn't feel comfortable reviewing this movie without pointing out that I don't think these issues were handled well and I feel like the film would have been measurably better if the writers had come up with some other source of conflict between the characters. (It also didn't help that the racist teen was by and large the most well-established character in the movie, so at times it felt like the writers were trying to paint him as the protagonist.)

That being said, again, I thought this movie was great. The creature effects were fantastic, the setting and tone were so so good, and I thought the ending was awesome and triumphant and the little fast-forward stinger was so cool that I fear the next movie is going to just ignore it in favor of setting up an easier sequel. And heck, here's a small thing I loved about this movie- in keeping with how rational and competent the characters in the previous film were, I loved how this one established that the cops managed to find all of those bodies! So often the inclination is to just set everything back to zero at the end, with the villain defeated but the world ignorant of their evil plan- but these two movies got at least the whole state aware of this weird demon thing's profane and disgusting plot.

All in all I think this was definitely a worthwhile successor to the first film and I'm really hoping the third doesn't screw it up!

Overall Rating: 7/10 Belly Button Shuriken

My Headcanon: The "creeper" is actually the weird spider/bat thing on the back of its head, and the humanoid body/head is just a decoy to blend in

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