Jeepers Creepers II (2003) |
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Jeepers Creepers II (2003) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Horror |
Trailer-Out Of Time, Barber Shop 2 Main Menu Audio & Animation Scene Selection Anim & Audio Audio Commentary-Victor Salva (Director) And Cast Featurette-Making Of-'Lights, Camera, Creeper', 'Creeper Creation' Featurette-Making Of-'Creeper Composer', 'Digital Effects' Featurette-Behind The Scenes-A Day In Hell Deleted Scenes Storyboards-The Creeper's Lair, Ventriloquist Creeper Gallery-Photo-2 Theatrical Trailer |
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| Year Of Production | 2003 | ||
| Running Time | 108:42 (Case: 104) | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | Dual Layered | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Language Select Then Ads Then Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 2,4 | Directed By | Victor Salva |
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Studio
Distributor |
 MGM |
Starring |
Ray Wise Jonathan Breck Garikayi Mutambirwa Eric Nenninger Nicki Lynn Aycox Marieh Delfino Diane Delano Thom Gossom Jr. Billy Aaron Brown Lena Cardwell Al Santos Travis Schiffner Kasan Butcher |
| Case | ? | ||
| RPI | ? | Music | Bennett Salvay |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) |
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English for the Hearing Impaired French Italian English Audio Commentary French Audio Commentary Italian Audio Commentary |
Smoking | Yes, minor |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
Jeepers Creepers 2 is the sequel to the earlier film by Victor Salva, which was a reasonably successful horror film. The first instalment introduced us to the character known as the Creeper - a huge, membrane-winged carnivore who hunts humans and eats carefully selected body parts. The first film managed to generate quite an atmosphere of tension and horror (for the first half in particular), it contained some great special effects, had a decent basic storyline and showed some promise from Salva. In it, the Creeper is revealed to have created a huge tapestry of human bodies, stitched together and filling the walls of a crypt beneath an isolated country church.
The basic premise behind the Creeper is that he is a probably immortal being, who hibernates for 23 years at a time - then emerges for a period of 23 days to feed on human victims. This sequel takes place four days after the events in the first film. The Creeper is getting ready to go back into hibernation and only has a few days left to satiate his carnivorous lust. After despatching a young lad who is out assembling scarecrows on his father's farm, the Creeper decides he has time to fit in a few more bodies before settling in for the night. Luckily for him, he comes across a bus-load (literally) of high school jocks and cheer leaders - The Bannon County Bantams - returning home from "the big game". Thus, we have the Creeper equivalent of a big tin of sardines - prime eatin' and less than half the cholesterol of cows.
That's pretty much the plot right there. Big, winged, leathery carnivore meets hordes of uninteresting, superficial American teens. Let the festivities commence. This simplicity is the biggest downfall of the movie - it contains only one interesting character (The Creeper), and that character has no dialogue. The anonymous teens are of no consequence to the viewer, and so their demise becomes an academic exercise. Who will be eaten next? Who will survive? Who the hell cares?
Jeepers Creepers 2 contains the same very high standard make-up effects of the first film, but that is where any similarities end. The drastically increased use of CGI in this sequel is not seamless and verges on the silly at times. The dialogue is trivial and the plot is tedious. I never felt scared in the slightest by this flick and found the overall experience to be one of boredom. Salva does comment in the extra features that this was more of an action flick than a horror movie - and he is correct. Conveyor belt death scenes, underdeveloped characters and a paint-by-numbers, lazy plot do not make for a fair trade with great make-up. One of the most surprising aspects of this picture is that Francis Ford Coppola produced it - go figure!
This may be worth a weekly-priced rental for fans of cheap horror flicks, but is nowhere near the standard of other modern horror fare such as Wrong Turn, Cabin Fever or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
The overall video transfer of this film is very good.
The movie is presented in an anamorphic aspect ratio of 2.35:1 which is the original theatrical aspect ratio.
The image is pretty well razor sharp throughout and there is nothing distracting in the way of grain or pixelization.
Fortunately, given that much of the film takes place during darkness, the lighting is very well done (although not always entirely realistic for an unlit country road). Black levels are very deep with no low-level noise in evidence. The shadow detail, too, is almost always excellent with plenty of visual detail on offer. Colours start out less promisingly, with a heavily oversaturated first reel. Luckily, they are toned down for later shots, and I can only assume that the orange hues in the cornfield scenes were a deliberate artistic choice on the part of the director or cinematographer. Outside of the opening scenes, skin tones are generally quite natural.
Aliasing was totally absent on my set-up and there was only a small amount of edge enhancement noticeable from time to time. This is evidenced as a halo around some characters and objects but is never bad enough to be annoying. I noted no significant issues with MPEG compression artefacts.
The transfer is very clean and I noticed no issues with scratches or dirt.
The English subtitles are highly legible and well timed. They follow the dialogue closely and provide audio cues for the major sound effects.
The disc is in a single sided and dual layered (RSDL) format, with the brief layer change occurring at 51:07.
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The audio transfer is very good indeed and is not too far from reference quality.
There is a single English audio track for the main feature, presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 encoded at 384 kbps. It is used to deliver a vibrant soundstage which makes use of the full dynamic range of all speakers. There are no notable defects in the way of clicks, hiss or dropouts. Audio sync is fine for the duration and the dialogue is always perfectly clear.
The musical score is highly appropriate for a lively action/horror flick and it builds to dramatic crescendos at all the right points. The score is credited to Bennett Salvay who also penned the score for the original Jeepers Creepers. Whilst it will be forgotten as soon as you eject the DVD, it does a fine job during the film.
The front speakers do a very good job of spreading the sound across the front of the room, whilst keeping the dialogue nicely anchored in the centre speaker. The surrounds are frequently used to provide an enveloping ambience - the chirping of crickets is a constant feature. The soundstage is frequently highly immersive with one of the best examples being the whispering around 39:48 which seems to close in from everywhere at once. There are plenty of examples of directional effects as birds or the Creeper fly overhead, and locational spot effects are used to provide a bit of a jolt every now and again.
The subwoofer gets a fair workout, both from the highly dynamic musical score and from numerous special effects. There is a fair degree of LFE presence, with numerous shots, explosions, car crashes and miscellaneous thuds as the Creeper punches holes in the roof of the bus. The solid bass effects really help to reinforce the on-screen action very well - the ominous rumbling leading to the ferocious attack on the bus around 50:15 is a great example.
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There are lots of extras present to delight fans of the film. This includes two undocumented "special features" in the form of non-skippable trailers for Barbershop 2 and Out Of Time. Personally, these things annoy the hell out of me!
The menus are very nicely done indeed, with scary sound effects and some lovely video effects. The main menu allows the options of playing the feature, selecting one of a robust thirty-two chapter stops (Body Parts), audio language and subtitle selection (Scream!) or watching the following special features (Appetisers):
The commentary features Salva and many of the young cast in a very light-hearted and informative affair. This is more fun than the film itself.
This documentary is presented anamorphically enhanced at 1.78:1 with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 192 kbps. It is fairly typical EPK stuff with the cast and crew, running for 14:06.
This documentary is presented anamorphically enhanced at 1.78:1 with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 192 kbps. It focuses on the storyboard creation of the Creeper and the special make-up effects. It runs for 11:19.
This piece is also presented anamorphically enhanced at 1.78:1 with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 192 kbps. It focuses on the score and runs for 9:16.
This short but interesting featurette is presented anamorphically enhanced at 1.78:1 with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 192 kbps. It shows the computer modelling, 2D and 3D compositing used in the creation of the Creeper. It runs for 4:05.
This is a behind the scenes tour of a day on the set with the director. It is very interesting and makes you really appreciate the effort that goes into making a movie such as this. Presented anamorphically enhanced at 1.78:1 with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 192 kbps, it runs for a lengthy 26:42.
Presented anamorphically enhanced at 2.35:1 with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 192 kbps, this sequence of deleted scenes runs for 15:10.
A black and white storyboard sequence, presented anamorphically enhanced at 1.78:1 with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 192 kbps, this runs for 4:06.
Another black and white storyboard sequence, presented anamorphically enhanced at 1.78:1 with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 192 kbps, this runs for 1:24.
Another of those useless, silent collections of photos from the set. If left to its own devices this anamorphically enhanced (1.78:1) collection of stills will run as a slideshow for 16:45.
Running for 2:04 and presented anamorphically enhanced at 2.35:1 with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 192 kbps.
Another collection of photos from the set. If left to do its own thing, this anamorphically enhanced (1.78:1) collection of stills will run as a silent slideshow for 14:30.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The Region 1 release of this film contains an additional special feature:
The Region 1 release is better overall from the extras perspective, but there is a suggestion that this has a slightly negative impact on the overall image quality. Nevertheless, the Region 1 version probably wins by a nose.
Jeepers Creepers 2 is not much of a horror movie. It is not much of an action movie either. As a hybrid of the two it may be worth a rental. Just don't expect a true horror flick and you may be pleasantly surprised. Some great make-up effects, terrible characters, good sound design, weak plot, lavish extras and a clean image make this DVD a bit of a mixed bag. For those who loved the first film this may be worthy of a purchase - for most of us it is a very well-packaged but mediocre film.
The 2.35:1 video transfer is very good.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 audio transfer is very good.
There are some significant extras present, which add genuine value to the DVD for fans.
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Momitsu V880 upconverting DVI player, using DVI output |
| Display | Sanyo PLV-Z2 WXGA projector. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Digital Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 720p. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials/Digital Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Onkyo TX-SR600 with DD-EX and DTS-ES |
| Speakers | JensenSPX-9 fronts, Jensen SPX-13 Centre, Jensen SPX-5 surrounds, Jensen SPX-17 subwoofer |