Jeepers Creepers : Le Chant du diable

I knew this one was considered a classic, but I avoided it for quite some time just because I thought it was going to be your basic cat and mouse, torture porn kinda thing. I was only half right...

This ended up being so much more than I thought it was going to be and I quite liked it. Even for it being over 20 years old I thought it held up really well. It still has the vibe of an early 2000s movie with some silly dialogue and not amazing acting, but there was a whole other added element to the story that I was not expecting, and was pleasantly surprised with.

While I enjoyed the movie as a whole, the first half definitely had that solid creep factor, while the second half was a little more "fun" if you will. The story at its core was a little skimpy, and left quite a bit up in the air as far as background or explanation goes.

While I definitely would've preferred a bit more to the plot, I surprisingly really enjoyed this overall. There was some serious spook, cool creature design, and the foundation for a gnarly story. Would recommend.

I found parts of this movie, mainly the beginning to be very promising. I really thought that it was going to be an 'on the edge of your seat' horror film and the opening had all the tension and weirdness that one needs to set that kind of atmosphere. But as the movie progressed, even though it never sunk to being bad or even mediocre (no Friday the 13th B.S. here), I think it became a little bit of a disappointment because it didn't live up to the promise that it made in the beginning. And although I like to let my mind fill in the blanks, there was a lot that went unexplained that made it so that I wasn't really satisfied by the time it finished. I didn't recognize the names of the actors or the director, and they were neither here nor there for me - that's not to say that I thought the performances were bad, they definitely were fitting and on the mark for the genre. It's just that they didn't really stick out for me.

All of the above being said, if the movie was on cable on a cold winter night, I'd probably relent and watch it again - it's certainly better than most in it's category, but would I recommend it as a 'great' film? No, probably not.

Jeepers Creepers starts with an incredible first 15 minutes that easily misleads one into thinking they are witnessing a truly special horror movie in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre vein. In this tense and exciting opening, two teenagers travelling down a lonely back-road are almost run off the road by a menacing truck; they later see the truck parked by an old church, and witness its driver throwing what appear to be bodies down a rusty shaft.

But from this point onwards, the film becomes a mess of clichés and bad plot decisions. Instead of driving to the nearest town to get help, the stupid teens decide to investigate the situation themselves. They discover an underground room decorated with the corpses of hundreds of missing people. Now they do what they should've done in the first place—get the hell out of there! But it's too late, and the killer—which turns out to be a supernatural bat-winged creature(!)—is intent on hunting them down.

Salva proves that he is adept at creating suspenseful moments but less capable when putting together a credible script. He introduces some mumbo-jumbo about a psychic who may or may not be able to help the kids, some drivel about the creature feeding for 23 days every 23 years, and ends the film poorly.

Jeepers Creepers definitely had potential, and Salva is obviously not without some talent behind the camera, but the end result is distinctly average.

I've been reading the reviews for this film and have found myself sighing continually. Why? Because too many people take films like this far too literally. Like the reviewer who questions the characters decision to go back to the church. Hello, this is a horror film and if they weren't stupid we wouldn't have a movie. What were you expecting? Kubrick? Jeepers Creepers does exactly what it says on the tin. It's creepy, it's silly, and, if you can get over yourselves for a minute, lots of fun. Leave your brain at the door and have fun.

Niz

When I watched this the first time quite a few years ago, it seemed like it would be a one-off. Now they plan the 3rd one, which is going to come out in 2011. Good or bad, the same director will be at helm, who claimed back then, that he wanted to make sure, that there wouldn't be any sequels. He had it all planned out (a story element would make this "impossible" to happen).

But I'm not going into detail about that, because I thought the movie was genuinely scary and creepy. I have to admit, that I wasn't aware of an obvious reference, that the title might have suggested. If you know it, it won't hit you as hard as myself, when it gets revealed at the end. But still, if you can go through the beginning and bear with it, when it gets pretty action-y towards the end, then you will enjoy it. I know I did. But I can understand, that some people did expect different things from it. I can only speak for myself and say that I liked the fact, that this was made the way it was. It dares to be different and does not give you a bunch of teenagers being hunt down by one guy ... Not to mention, that all this has a very cool conclusion (the main idea if you wanna call it that) in the end.