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Film: Jeepers Creepers II
Year: 2003
Director: Victor Salva
Writer: Victor Salva
Starring: Jonathan Breck, Ray Wise and Nicki Aycox
Review:
This film begins by telling us the rule that we learned from the first film. The creature gets to eat every 23rd spring for 23 days.
The film then kicks off with a young boy, played by Shaun Fleming. He is hanging up scarecrows for his father, who is played by Ray Wise. There is another son who is working on a truck, played by Luke Edwards. Wise is barking orders at Fleming. He goes to use his post puncher and it isn’t working as it is supposed to. Wise blames Fleming for this. Fleming notices that one of the scarecrows is moving and he goes to check it out. He gets too close and it turns out to the creature, played by Johnathan Breck. Breck begins dragging the boy through the corn.
Wise and Edwards go after him, but he is too late. The boy is taken.
We then shift to a school bus for a basketball team that has just won the state championship. Notables on this bus are Eric Nenninger. He is a good player, but he thinks he is better than what he is. He didn’t get as much playing time as he wanted and is upset about it. Nenninger’s girlfriend is a cheerleader and she is on the bus, she is played by Marieh Delfino. There is an African-American who is the real star of the team, played by Garikayi Mutambirwa. Another cheerleader and best friend to Delfino is played by Nicki Aycox.
While they are going, one of the tires goes flat. The coaches, played by Thom Gossom Jr. and Tom Tarantini, as well as the bus driver, played by Diane Delano, go outside to check it out. They find a ninja star type weapon was used. They freak out when they find a tooth in it. Delano tries to get help with the radio.
Wise has made it mission to find his son and kill Breck. He goes about creating weapons to fight it. Edwards helps him and he also finds a dagger that Breck left behind.
Back at the bus, Delano cannot get anyone on the radio and says she can drive the bus if she goes slowly since it is only missing the one tire. As they go, Aycox has a dream of the star from the first film; Justin Long makes a cameo here. Long and Fleming try to tell her that Breck is out there and to turn around. The bus is attacked again with another ninja star and they are now stranded.
Gossom speaks with a car that comes upon them, asking them to get help. He drops flairs and something takes him. Nenninger and the rest of the team try to figure out where their coach has gone. Tarantini wants them back on the bus, but Nenninger is defiant. He thinks there is something wrong between them due to his lack of playing time.
When Delano and Tarantini are both taken, the players barricade themselves on the bus. Breck makes an appearance and makes gestures toward them. Aycox passes out and has another vision. Long tells her what is known about Breck. When she wakes up, she reveals his information. Nenninger doesn’t believe her, but the rest of the bus does.
Wise begins monitoring police channels and when he hears about the abductions in the county over, he and Edwards load up their weapons.
Breck begins to pick them off. They do fight back, but every time they hurt it, he kills someone else and uses something from them to regenerate. Can Breck be stopped or will he kill all those that have something he wants? The deadline for Breck is coming up, can they survive until then? Will Wise and Edwards’ weapons work in stopping him?
Now I have to say that the original is better than this one. To really enjoy this film, you have to take much of normal logic out. There are a lot of things that are goofs and take away the realism. What I like is the creature, what it does and struggle to survive against it. The acting is decent, I love that this film takes place just a couple of days after the original and I like the continuity between the two films. This one was made a few years after the original, so it is good they still kept things in line from the previous.
As stated, there are a lot of errors with this film. Most high school basketball is done before the spring, so it doesn’t make sense that this team has just played their final game, since basketball is a winter sport. Where is all of the equipment, fans, the band and does the team really only have three cheerleaders. If this is the spring, why is the corn in the fields already dead? Also all of the actors are clearly older than the roles they are trying to play. Aycox probably looks the most like a high school student, but was definitely not close in real life to this age. The issue that really bothers me though, is Wise creating the weapon he does, without testing it and it working as seamless as it does. It was really farfetched. A lot of this does not have anything to do with the actual story that’s being presented, but these are things that hurt it for me and the realism of a film.
With that said, if you can throw logic away and just enjoy a film, then I would recommend giving this one a viewing. It has a pretty good story, decent acting and a pretty creepy monster. I feel that the first one does a better job at building tension where this one seems to go more for the horror of it. It does follow the original storyline and doesn’t do much to ruin it. This one is also all about having a higher body count than the original, so if you are into that, then give this a viewing. There are a lot of logical errors, but as I have said, if you can put that aside, this is a decent horror film.
My Rating: 6 out of 10