Jeepers Creepers (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Horror	Menu Animation & Audio Dolby Digital Trailer-Egypt Theatrical Trailer Scene Selection Anim & Audio
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	86:57
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (47:39)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Victor Salva
Studio Distributor	Capitol Films Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Justin Long Gina Philips
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$34.95	Music	Bennet Salvay

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English dts 5.1 (768Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, the truck re-appears at the end of the credits.

    The story of Jeepers Creepers is the tale of typical brother and sister, Darry (Justin Long) and Trisha (Gina Philips) Jenner, who happen upon horrific circumstances. The pair are driving home for spring break through an isolated part of the state (it was filmed in Florida, but the state is never mentioned), when they are nearly run off the road by a maniac in an old truck, who speeds off ahead after passing them. Soon however, they see the old truck again with a man standing behind it throwing what look like bodies down an old tube. Problem is, he sees them too, and gives chase, this time actually running them off the road. Then, in typical horror movie fashion, the pair head back to the pipe to investigate what lies at the bottom - and what they find is the stuff of nightmares. From there the chase is on, as they try to flee the unspeakable evil that drives the old truck.

    Jeepers Creepers is a horror movie in the "old style" - there are none (well, there is one, but it really doesn't count) of the post-modern horror references used liberally by the likes of the Scream, or I Know... series. This is all about isolation, building tension, and unstoppable foes. The characters, as always in a horror movie, make the fatal flaw that dooms them, and as always they wonder why the bad guy is interested in them. There are a few things about Jeepers Creepers that aren't so great - the back story of the truck driver consists of about a minute's worth of explanatory dialogue from a character that seems to have been specifically created to explain things, and the motivations of the "explainer" character are never really explored at all. In most other ways, this is a vastly superior effort to almost all other horror that has come out in the last few years, especially the teen horror/slasher films. This is a tense and disturbing experience that is what horror is all about - being horrific!

Video

    Presented in the original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1, this transfer is 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is relatively sharp, although not bleedingly so. There is a moderate amount of grain present in this film, and it becomes quite noticeable at times, particularly in low light conditions, such as the shots of Darry from the base of the pipe between 20:44 and 21:14, and as the smoke roils off at 47:10. Shadow detail is good without being spectacular. As a very large portion of the movie takes place at night, this does cause some problems, although a large part of the problem is the source material - the shadow detail for the theatrical run of Jeepers Creepers was not much better, if at all. There is no low level noise present in the transfer.

    Colours are very good. The greens and yellows of the summertime fields are displayed with their full beauty, and the brighter colours of the characters' clothing are rendered equally as well.

    There are no compression artefacts in this transfer, but unfortunately the same cannot be said for film artefacts. The print is constantly flecked with them, and while none are particularly large, they do become quite annoying. It is a bad omen really that the entire first shot of the movie, from 1:07 to 1:59 is marked with a black line running the height of the image. This is likely to be an original source issue however, as the same line is present on the Region 1 version of this disc. An amusing note is the black blob that occurs at 9:09 appears to be a fly flitting near the camera and not a film artefact at all. There are only a few instances of aliasing, although when it occurs on the car grille (between 16:16 and 16:22) it is rather distracting.

    The subtitles are quite accurate, are nicely rendered and easy to read, and are well paced. In the typical Roadshow style they are placed (where possible) under the character saying the line.

    This is an RSDL formatted disc with the layer change occurring at 47:39 during Chapter 14. It is quite well placed, as it occurs when the screen is totally black, although the cessation of the ambient surround still draws attention to it.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are two audio tracks present on this disc, being the original English dialogue available in both Dolby Digital 5.1 (at 448 Kbps), and DTS 5.1 (at 768 Kbps).

    The dialogue is clear and easy to understand at all times. There are no problems with the mixing level of the dialogue, ambient effects, and score, with each being well proportioned to the other.

    The major problem with the soundtrack is audio sync. The entire soundtrack, both in Dolby Digital and DTS, is affected to some degree, with the DTS track faring marginally worse than the Dolby Digital. There are some instances, such as between 6:27 and 6:41 where it is quite obvious, but paying too much attention to the lip movements at any time during the transfer still gives the sense of it not being quite right. It is fortunate that much of the movie takes place in the dark, for once the shadows descend, the audio sync problem has a far smaller impact on the film than it does in the brightly lit conditions.

    The score for Jeepers Creepers is credited to Bennet Salvay, and is a fairly good effort. It does grate on more than a few occasions for the fairly clichéd way in which it is used, and the very 70s/80s like use of strange sound effects to build tension, but as annoying as it can become, it still does build the tension, so it is doing its job.

    The surround channels get quite a good workout during this film, performing quite nicely during the action sequences and staying alive at most times to provide ambient surround and to support the score. There are a few occasions when the soundfield collapses to the front channels, and a few action sequences where the soundfield is very frontal when it really should not be, but these are the exception rather than the rule.

    The subwoofer generally does not have that much to do, only being called on to back a few of the lower frequency effects sounds (gunfire and the like).

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Theatrical Trailer (1:50)

• Director's Audio Commentary
• 10 deleted scenes
• Behind the Peepers (a collection of 6 mini-featurettes running just under an hour in total)
• Photo Gallery
• Cast and Crew Bios
• Trailers for: Hannibal, Silence of the Lambs DVD, The Terminator DVD, Carrie DVD
• French and Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 surround soundtracks
• French and Spanish subtitles
• 4:3 version of the film

• DTS 5.1 soundtrack

    The video quality is good without being spectacular, although for the most part that would seem to be due to source related problems, as the Region 1 looks exactly the same.

    The audio quality is good, but suffers from audio sync problems that range from subtle to pronounced, but last for most of the film.

    There are almost no extras at all, which is even more disappointing when it is considered that the Region 1 contains over an hour of extra material in addition to an audio commentary.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall