Jeepers Creepers: Reborn (2022) – Film Review

Director: Timo Vuorensola
Cast: Sydney Craven, Imran Adams, Dee Wallace
Certificate: 15

By Roger Crow

Years ago I saw the first two Jeepers Creepers films, which relied on the interesting premise that every generation or more, a ravenous, murderous creature, The Creeper, emerges, feeds on victims, then goes back to sleep.

Of course this idea has been used in many other genre offerings, including Stephen King’s It, and Candyman (which recently enjoyed a surprisingly good reboot).

“Premonitions”

Though there is another movie before this latest JC offering, I’m not convinced it’s worth a look. I do know one thing is definite: this is worth swerving like your life depended on it.

We open in familiar territory. A generic rural backwater. Nowheresville USA, where a seasoned couple (yes, that is Dee Wallace from ET and the bloke from Alien Nation the TV series). They are terrorised in a Duel-like fashion by a guy in a truck.

When they eventually witness him popping a wrapped body into a shredder, naturally alarm bells start ringing. So it’s a good hook, like Candyman (pun intended), but the rest of the film, made by the guy who did those ‘Nazis on the Moon’ Iron Sky movies, looks like a series of video game cut scenes.

The plot: while travelling with her boyfriend, Laine experiences premonitions associated with the urban myth of The Creeper. She believes something supernatural has been summoned – and that she is at the centre of it all. She is, in a kind of Rosemary’s Baby way. And like Polanski, there is a real backstory to the film-maker behind the original saga which will probably make you want to avoid the entire franchise.

“Displeasure”

Apparently a lot of the new movie was shot in a studio near Winchester, which is a shame to have all that glorious scenery outside and not use it.

With many scenes taking place in broad daylight, there’s little chance of tension, and the CGI backdrops are about as convincing as that recent episode of Corrie when Kelly was held at gunpoint on a rooftop. Aka rubbish.

Cast is okay, but nothing special, though the scream queen heroine, Sydney Craven, was slightly more interesting than the rest of her associates. The script sounds like it was knocked up by a screenplay generator programme, and everything is so by the numbers. There’s a creepy old house, naturally, and a tongue-in-cheek moment when the villain’s beloved old gramophone player is destroyed. That vintage track which inspired the first film is played incessantly, so when the villain, who we see far too much of, growls his displeasure, it’s supposed to be funny. But, for the record, it isn’t. And that bad pun is better than anything in the movie.