The Story:

Brother and sister Derry and Patricia find themselves being hunted by a strange flesh-eating creature driving a rusted-out truck on the isolated back roads they are taking on their spring break trip home.

The Characters:

Justin Long and Gina Phillips are great playing the role of bickering siblings. Coming from a house of three kids I found I could relate to the pairs interaction with each other. Keeping with the positive points, Johnathan Breck is amazing as the purple people eater, he embodies everything you expect of such a creature with a perfection that will hopefully never be replaced. The movie could have done without the psychic and I really can’t understand why nobody listens to her ranting. She knows everything that’s going to happen, there is a winged monstrosity on the loose yet it seems it’s such a huge stretch for the characters at this point to also believe in the existence of psychics. The character felt thrown in to eat up time and give the creature more back story than what is acceptable in this kind of movie.

Effects/Gore:

The makeup effects are seamless and the accompanying CG has aged well compared to most from that time. (Revisit The Mummy to see what I mean, or better yet don’t!) As for the gore, we get to watch him feed.  Nothing shocking, however, more than satisfying.

Lasting Appeal:

Jeepers Creepers was the first really good horror movie I saw in theaters. I’ve seen it so many times I can practically recite the dialogue. Everything has aged very well making it just as entertaining as it was nine years ago.

Final Headcount:

Jeepers Creepers is everything a creature feature should hope to be. It doesn’t take itself too seriously (“tastes so darn good”), has great kills and Johnathen Breck’s performance mixed with that makeup makes for a truly terrifying villain, especially in the final fifteen minutes when unveiled in his entirety. The only thing it loses points for is the psychic and the wasted potential surrounding her death, or lack thereof.