Jeepers Creepers : Le Chant du diable

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.

Putting aside the not terribly good title, this is a most effective horror movie with an urban legend kind of plot. Very natural and realistic performances by the two leads, Justin Long & Gina Philips, help a lot, and the director knows what he is doing. They portray a brother and sister who are on a long drive home at the wrong time. Long is a very likeable fellow to watch and has done a lot of things since this, but I've never liked him better than here. Many very frightening scenes and some are quite cringe worthy. This may sound odd considering the gore involved, but this is a fun movie to watch. However, if you get weak in the knees at horror films, maybe not. Quite a bit above 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.

For all it's worth I thought that Jeepers Creepers was great. A lot of people have critisized this film and just did'nt like it. The only flaw in the film was the reason for them to return to the church where they saw the mysterious man. If that would have been anyone in their right mind they would have drivin as far away as posssable. I thought that Trish should have been knocked out to awaken only to find her brother gone. The only place for her to start looking would have been the church.Other than that the film was a blast. The creature was great and one of the scariest I've seen in a while. Very imagiantive and constantly asking what the hell IS THAT? As in any horror film it is ment to be entertaining. If you watched the whole thing without hitting the eject button then you must have had some intrest in it. Victor has brought back a return to the old style creature feature films that I loved in the day and hope to see him make some more in the future.