Starting almost immediately after the events of the 2001 film, the Creeper (Jonathan Breck), who feeds on human body parts for twenty-three days every twenty-three years, has less than a day left before he goes dormant. After picking off a kid in a cornfield, he targets a bus load of high school students returning from a Championship game. With a crippled vehicle, the student athletes and cheerleaders have no way to fight the beast, and their only help comes from an obsessed farmer (Ray Wise) out for revenge.
Writer/director Victor Salva understands something few in Hollywood do: for good or ill, a sequel should be different from the original. Jeepers Creepers was an eerie picture that went for frights by focusing on two characters and their reaction to an unknown threat. Well, the threat is known now, so that level of tension was not possible. Instead, Salva gives us a fun, slam-bang horror romp, with multiple, mainly unpleasant teens getting what we hope they’ll get. Again, Salva proves himself to be a skilled director, who keeps the action going. Watching Jeepers Creepers II is less like viewing its dark predecessor and more akin to a few hours in a sports stadium: you can get wrapped up in the game, yelling for a player to make the right move that will keep the team going (and the player from having his spleen eaten).
But like the first film, Salva’s script could use some touching up. Again, he can’t come up with a way for the Creeper’s background to be discovered, so he just has a girl have a dream that fills in the details. This might be an improvement from the wandering psychic in Jeepers Creepers as it is easier to ignore, but it’s every bit as lazy. The characters range from mildly disagreeable to “if the world was good, he would have his liver ripped out,” which is problematic as I should care if these people die. I should also be able to tell them apart, but only the really annoying ones stand out. Luckily, many of them do have their livers ripped out (or something equally important), so the world is good. Again, Salva fails in the dialog department, having everyone bicker with exclamation points ending each sentence. But he has the good graces to break up these bitch-fests with a teen being plucked into the air.
The film does offer up a new kind of bus that must have a papier-mâché roof. Or maybe it’s that the team includes the world’s strongest cheerleader, as she not only can shove a javelin through the roof without effort, but through bone as well. It’s a good thing she is tough as her fellow students aren’t very bright. If I was trapped on a bus with a monster outside, and someone on the radio asked me to come up with some close by landmarks so he could find me, I’d think of some landmarks. I wouldn’t say, “Anything close? Yeah, I’m close to peeing my pants.”
OK, this is a dumb movie. But it is a well shot, well paced, sit-on-the-edge-of-your-seat dumb movie.