Chase (Imran Adams of Hollyoaks and Ghosts) is a self-confessed geek who takes his beautiful girlfriend Laine (Sydney Craven of EastEnders and A Christmas Carol) on a surprise trip. They both have a secret: she has discovered she is pregnant, and he has a ring ready to propose marriage. For most of the journey, Chase chats excitedly about his favourite subject: the legend of the Creeper, who returns every 23 years to prey for 23 days. He knows everything there is to know about the myth, and is convinced it is real. He even has social media clips reported to be distant glimpses of the humanoid creature. They reach Louisiana and its revealed that Chase has brought them to the notorious Horror Hound festival. Once immersed in the crowds of die-hard horror fans and cosplay, Laine suffers premonitions concerning the town’s past. Winning a competition will lead them into the heart of the lair of the Creeper, who has curious aspirations for Laine...

The opening sequence of the film features an elderly couple falling foul of the Creeper and its truck, in a scene stolen straight out of the first Jeepers Creepers film. This is almost certainly intended as a reminder of the origins of the story, but dissenters will undoubtedly cite this as a blatant rip-off. Nevertheless, the piece is handled well, and it’s a lovely surprise to see Dee Wallace of countless horror and science fiction films still looking good and sounding good. The festival itself is reminiscent of the voodoo carnival scenes witnessed in Adam Green’s excellent Hatchet movie. I suppose, in this day and age it’s almost impossible to make a totally original flick, and so moments of sceptical comparison are inevitable.

I never check out other reviews until I have written my own, and never change my mind. After all, opinions are subjective. The fans and critics almost universally slated Jeepers Creepers: Reborn upon its movie release, classing it as beneath contempt. Compared with the impressive first film by Victor Salva it’s poor, but taken as a stand-alone horror film it’s really not that bad. Two main things let it down: one being that the Creeper has lost all of its mystery because we now know too much about it (it looks like a winged Freddy Krueger who works down the mine) ; and the other being a lot of things seem to happen for the sake of plot convenience rather than through believable character logic. It’s also a bad move (but a good one, no doubt, in terms of budget) to enclose the main characters within one building – the lair of the Creeper. It makes it all too easy for the resident monster, and so the dénouement less convincing.

All said and done, I wasn’t bored by events – even finding the couple of Chase and Laine quite likeable. I’m rather surprised to find no extras on this disc, which is almost unheard of these days, and a point has to be dropped for that alone.

6

Ty Power