Jeepers Creepers
2001 · Directed by Victor Salva
Original language: English
- horror
- mystery
The story
On a desolate country highway, two homeward-bound teens are nearly run off the road by a maniac in a beat-up truck, and later spot him shoving what appears to be a body down a sewer pipe.
What it’s like
Dusky, sun-bleached rural daylight that drains to sickly orange at dusk, then full dark with only headlight beams and flashlight cones cutting through it. The camera stays close and jumpy in the car, and the long empty two-lane roads have a flat, washed-out look under a huge sky. Sound does most of the work: a tinny radio, a rattling truck engine, and an eerie, rising, bell-like score that spikes when something moves out of frame. The mood is sun-bleached unease sliding into outright dread, with a sibling-banter lightness up front that curdles as the road wears on. Its violence is brief but brutal and sometimes gory, with some grisly body imagery and a few sudden murders, plus a creeping cruelty and a lot of fear rather than gratuitous sex. It suits a late-night watch with the lights off, or a horror-fan double feature on a rainy evening. It is for people who like slow-building road-trip dread, creature menace in the wide countryside, and a jolt-filled final act.
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