Jeepers Creepers II (2003)

Director:

Victor Salva

Writers (WGA):

Victor Salva (characters)
Victor Salva (written by)

Release Date:

29 August 2003 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

He can taste your fear.

Plot:

Set a few days after the original, a championship basketball team's bus is attacked by The Creeper, the winged, flesh-eating terror, on the last day of his 23-day feeding frenzy.

Plot Keywords:

Bus | Cheerleader | Fear | Nightmare | High School

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Ray Wise	...	Jack Taggart, Sr.
Jonathan Breck	...	The Creeper
Garikayi Mutambirwa	...	Deaundre 'Double D' Davis
Eric Nenninger	...	Scott 'Scotty' Braddock
Nicki Aycox	...	Minxie Hayes
Marieh Delfino	...	Rhonda Truitt
Diane Delano	...	Bus Driver Betty Borman
Thom Gossom Jr.	...	Coach Charlie Hanna
Billy Aaron Brown	...	Andy 'Bucky' Buck
Lena Cardwell	...	Chelsea Farmer
Al Santos	...	Dante Belasco
Travis Schiffner	...	Izzy Bohen
Kasan Butcher	...	Kimball 'Big K' Ward
Josh Hammond	...	Jake Spencer
Tom Tarantini	...	Coach Dwayne Barnes

Also Known As:

Jeepers Creepers 2 (USA) (trailer title)
Jeepers Creepers 2: The Second Night (USA) (working title)
Like Hell: Jeepers Creepers 2 (USA) (working title)
Jeepers Creepers II (Argentina) (Spain) [es]
Джиперс криперс-2 (Russia) [ru]
Human Catcher (Japan: English title) [en]
Jeepers Creepers 2 (Greece) [el]
Jeepers Creepers 2 (Germany) [de]
Jeepers Creepers 2 (Finland) [fi]
Jeepers creepers 2 - le chant du diable (France) [fr]
Kabus gecesi (Turkey: Turkish title) [tr]
Morts de peur 2 (Canada: French title) [fr]
Olhos Famintos 2 (Brazil) [pt]

MPAA:

Rated R for horror violence and language.

Runtime:

USA:104 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:14A (Alberta/Ontario) | Canada:18A (British Columbia/Manitoba) | Canada:R (Nova Scotia) | Sweden:15 | Iceland:16 | Malaysia:18SG | Finland:K-15 | Argentina:13 | Australia:R | Brazil:14 | Canada:18A | Chile:TE | France:-12 | Germany:16 | Netherlands:16 | Norway:15 | Philippines:R-13 | Singapore:NC-16 | South Korea:18 | Spain:13 | UK:15 | USA:R (certificate #39321)

Filming Locations:

Long Beach, California, USA

Company:

United Artists

Trivia:

In the first scene, before the Creeper appears, Jack Taggart Jr. is working underneath a truck. The device he uses to slide underneath it is commonly referred to as a "creeper".

Goofs:

Factual errors: At the end of the credits the year besides the title says 2002 when the movie was released in 2003.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Taggert: [yelling out to Billy, who's putting up scarecrows] Billy! Get number three up now. Don't come in to eat before you do. And check the other two! Make sure they're wired up good. I don't want them blowing over again the first big wind.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in A Day in Hell: On the Set of 'Jeepers Creepers II' (2003) (V)

Soundtrack:

The Bannon County Fight Song

I'll tell you creepy . . .

Honestly, folks, I didn't want to start this review by mentioning that writer/director Victor Salva is a convicted child molester, but one can't help but pick up on the subtext of Jeepers Creepers 2. The premise of this film, if you could call it that, is a very old monster preying on high school basketball players who like to walk around without shirts on. Holy Inappropriate Metaphor, Batman!

The team just won the state championship basketball game, and are driving somewhere in a school bus, but the Creeper has no intention of letting those luscious . . . I mean, edible young boys get away from him.

As far as movie monsters go, the Creeper has the least interesting interaction with its victims. It smiles at them, winks on occasion, but mostly it just smells them. There are countless close-ups of the Creeper's over-complicated nasal passages, because, as we are later informed, the Creeper chooses his victims based on the smell of their fear.

This information, along with several other plot factoids, are provided by one of the cheerleaders who suddenly becomes psychic halfway through the movie for no better reason than someone has to fill us in on what's really happening.

I don't know if its supposed to be scary, but the Creeper has certain rules. Like, it only awakes every 23rd spring for 23 days so it can eat. What's kind of funny, or not, is that we the audience are informed of this before the first scene. Why do we learn it again an hour later, and see everyone reacting to it as if it was some kind of revelation?

One thing that helped the first Jeepers Creepers was its sarcasm. I remember one character saying to another, `You know the part of the scary movie were someone does something really stupid? This is that part.' In my review of that film, I even praised its visual comedy:

`Now here's my favorite part of the movie. He drags the body over to his truck and heaves it in the back with all his other bodies, slamming the door. Two or three seconds of darkness . . . then one door cracks open, and the Creeper just tosses the severed head in, like it was his backpack.'

But alas, this humor is completely missing in the sequel. All we have here is an hour and a half of a scary guy chasing after all the fresh young boys in the area. Had it been a home movie, that mighta been creepy.