Two or more Shirley Temples will do crazy things to your judgement, if last night is any indication: I saw Jeepers Creepers 2 last night, a movie I had never intended to lay eyes on. Much of it was typical post-modern horror fare, but there are moments in the first movie and its sequel that persist in impressing me. Like the set-up:
Every 23rd Spring
For 23 Days
It Gets to Eat
Those were the words that graced the screen at the beginning of Jeepers Creepers 2. How cool is that? It's so cryptic. What's the significance of the number 23? I don't know, and I hope they never tell me. That's what horror's all about: the unknown. How scary is the Headless Horseman when it turns out he's just a hit man for Miranda Richardson's power-hungry schemes, a la Sleepy Hollow? Not very, I declare.
The first Jeepers Creepers was great about not answering those kind of questions, at least until it blew it halfway through the movie. If the movie had been a half hour, it would have killed. Think of it: a brother and sister driving home from college, they see a creepy guy dumping suspicious-looking remains into a sewage pipe outside a ram-shackle farmhouse, the creepy guy looks up and fixes an unwavering, creepy-as-hell gaze at the car. How many times have you been driving through the countryside and you see some creepy Texas Chainsaw Massacre house, and you just wonder about it. That's eery, that's unsettling.
Not to say this un-scary sequel, JC2, is not entertaining. Its premise is based on a simple and rudimentary question: "What happens when a bus full of high-schoolers breaks down within the vicinity of a winged man-eater?" The movie devotes itself to examining the mechanics of this situation, and when it answers it (halfway through the movie) it poses another: "What happens when you take a bus full of high-schoolers and a winged man-eater, and mix it with a harpoon gun situated on a pickup truck?"
The answer is a jolly good time. If you feel so inclined, though, I'd make it a Blockbuster night, because all of your money should be going to Bill Murray's Lost in Translation next weekend.
Every 23rd Spring
For 23 Days
It Gets to Eat
Those were the words that graced the screen at the beginning of Jeepers Creepers 2. How cool is that? It's so cryptic. What's the significance of the number 23? I don't know, and I hope they never tell me. That's what horror's all about: the unknown. How scary is the Headless Horseman when it turns out he's just a hit man for Miranda Richardson's power-hungry schemes, a la Sleepy Hollow? Not very, I declare.
The first Jeepers Creepers was great about not answering those kind of questions, at least until it blew it halfway through the movie. If the movie had been a half hour, it would have killed. Think of it: a brother and sister driving home from college, they see a creepy guy dumping suspicious-looking remains into a sewage pipe outside a ram-shackle farmhouse, the creepy guy looks up and fixes an unwavering, creepy-as-hell gaze at the car. How many times have you been driving through the countryside and you see some creepy Texas Chainsaw Massacre house, and you just wonder about it. That's eery, that's unsettling.
Not to say this un-scary sequel, JC2, is not entertaining. Its premise is based on a simple and rudimentary question: "What happens when a bus full of high-schoolers breaks down within the vicinity of a winged man-eater?" The movie devotes itself to examining the mechanics of this situation, and when it answers it (halfway through the movie) it poses another: "What happens when you take a bus full of high-schoolers and a winged man-eater, and mix it with a harpoon gun situated on a pickup truck?"
The answer is a jolly good time. If you feel so inclined, though, I'd make it a Blockbuster night, because all of your money should be going to Bill Murray's Lost in Translation next weekend.
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