Jeepers Creepers 2

Jeepers Creepers 2 has almost nothing in common with the original. The monster used to be a dry, flaky mess, now it's a wet, gooey mess. It used to drive a truck, now it flies with wings. It used to look like an insect, now it's humanoid. Strange, considering that the second film is set just a few days after the original. But the biggest difference is that the first movie was scary and the second movie isn't. Writer/director Victor Salva (Powder) puts a busload of high school jocks on a deserted road and lets his big, gay monster devour them one by one. Salva, who also directed the original, tries to distinguish different characters by showing how each of them acts under pressure. Are they snivelling cowards or heroic team players? There's a big cast here, and almost every kid on the bus has a speaking role. But neither the writing nor the performances are strong enough to give us any deep sense of character. Who just got killed? Who cares? And once we lose track of the characters, there's not much of a story to hang on to. The monster spends way too much time on the roof of the bus reaching down and trying to get at the boys inside. Why doesn't the monster just rip the doors off? It is virtually omnipotent in other scenes. Salva had the same problem in the first film — his monster is just too strong for believable human resistance. The DVD has a couple of decent features: a making of featurette and some documentation of the special effect processes. The commentaries are particularly weak, however, and never go much deeper than talking about the makeup or the special effects. As much as he pushes a homoerotic subtext in his film, Salva does not address the themes in his commentary. It's too bad, because those themes are something that distinguishes his work from more conventional horror fare. It would be interesting to hear him talk about it. (MGM)