Creature feature

>> Jeepers Creepers doesn't deliver the thrills

by MATTHEW HAYS

Here it is, the latest teen horror flick which some industry hacks are telling us is recreating the wheel. Sorry to say it, but the genre is again in the slumps, after a sweet little comeback with the Scream movies. Now we're reduced to the Scary Movie movies, which are simply annoying.

And now this, Jeepers Creepers, directed and written by Victor Salva and sporting a Francis Ford Coppola co-producer credit. That, one would hope, might mean something for a film like this.

Sadly, it doesn't deliver. The setup has a brother and sister duo (Keanu Reeves lookalike Justin Long and Gina Philips) heading home for spring break. Naturally, they must drive along a virtually deserted country road. After recounting a nasty legend about a young couple who disappeared 20 years earlier, they witness a mysterious figure dumping what appear to be bloodied bodies wrapped in sheets down a hole off the side of the road.

Said local sees them, and is soon pursuing them in his suped-up truck. They reach for their cell phone, but the thing reads "Battery low." (Note: the next time a screenplay depicts a cell phone reading "Battery low," the screenwriter should be promptly fired.) After ditching the man in hostile pursuit, our sibling heroes return to the site of the dump, trying to figure out what happened to the corpses and if indeed any of them are still alive.

The movie continues along from there, with the inevitable pursuit by the man, who, as it turns out, is another Freddie/Jason prodigy, a nasty, evil, we-couldn't-stop-him-if-we-wanted-to monster. (And who'd want to stop him? That would threaten the potential franchise.) There are some flashy images in Jeepers, and a few jolts. But it puzzles me that horror icon Clive Barker has granted the film his praise. It's an odd blessing for a film that seems much like a number of the last horror movies I've seen. The monster itself is particularly unremarkable, looking like an above-average Halloween costume. And, as usual, the monster or his legend is never really explained. It's fitting that this looks like it will appeal to stoned teens, because it feels like it was written by them too.

Toss another entry onto the scrap heap. We horror freaks will have to find our fix somewhere else. Jeepers left me feeling less scared than just downright melancholy. Where have all the monsters gone?

Jeepers Creepers opens Friday, Aug. 31