The Jeepers Creepers Reboot: A Fan Film That Somehow Made It to the Big Screen
The winged farmer in a leather coat has firmly entered pop culture, but has never been inducted into the “elite” legion of maniacs. Freddy, Jason, and Michael Myers are the head counselors of teenage deaths in the slasher camp, while Jeepers Creepers orchestrates fear in the modest domain of a desert highway. Perhaps it’s because Victor Salva’s film was released not in the '80s or '90s, but in the early 2000s, or perhaps the dilogy aged poorly, failing to become infallibly iconic. Whatever the reason, Creeper has remained a second-tier cinematic villain. Although, it must be admitted, despite the layers of plastic makeup and disproportionate choreography of jumps, old Jeepers could still frighten lost travelers.
Rebooting the Creeper
But are there any significant obstacles to a reboot? The films released one after another in 2001 and 2002 are perceived as two chapters of the same hunting season. In 2017, Victor Salva independently decided to enter the river a third time—the result was frankly unsuccessful, so much so that the film was forgotten the next day. Now, Finnish director Timo Vuorensola and screenwriter Sean-Michael Argo, with a questionable filmography (let’s say, “Voodoo Cowboys”), have taken over. The authors retained the familiar universe but used a meta-device: Creeper is a well-known figure, an urban legend passed from mouth to mouth, films about the killer have been released (also three), and the monster’s sleep cycle is still 23 years.
Sidney Craven as Laine in a still from “Jeepers Creepers: Reborn”
Chase (Imran Adams) and Laine (Sidney Craven) went to a geeky gathering of cosplayers and horror fans in Louisiana: southern gothic, voodoo trinkets, festival fun, and spontaneous lottery prizes. While Pennywises of all stripes entertain themselves on the dance floor in an embrace with Michael Myers, the lovers receive tickets for a tour-quest to the Creeper’s estate. They are accompanied by members of the film crew covering the nightmare fair (Ocean Navarro, Matt Barkley), and a menacing local farmer (Peter Brooke)—more than monsters, the townspeople fear rednecks. Despite the setting, Laine relies on reason, and therefore does not believe in horror stories, and the girl is more worried about a sudden pregnancy, while Chase is inspired by the trip like never before: the young man wants to believe that Creeper exists, and his beloved will agree to become his wife. Let’s assume that he will be lucky twice.
Jarreau Benjamin as Creeper in a still from “Jeepers Creepers: Reborn”
“Reborn” begins as a cheap horror film from the 2000s, and continues even worse. The script (if the text was actually written, and not filmed on a whim) chaotically mixes the fable of Jeepers Creepers, birds, sectarians, unborn children, regeneration, visions of the future, Hellfest developments, references to the first films, and a leaking roof. The visual means are not far behind the dramaturgy, in the second half of the film the CGI mastery is amazing: the actors are literally glued to the wallpaper with the background of either a cemetery or an estate, plasticine crows fly in the sky, and Jarreau Benjamin unconvincingly cosplays Creeper. The film looks so absurd that it is hard to believe that “Creepers” is a low-budget, but studio horror, and not a child of production initiated by fans of the franchise.
Sidney Craven as Laine in a still from “Jeepers Creepers: Reborn”
A Fan-Made Film
The fourth chapter of the Creeper’s hunt is incredibly similar to a fan film created out of thin air by the power of love and altruism: an unwavering belief in the final result is the only thing that makes you watch “Reborn” to the end. True, having overcome the barrier in the middle of the timing, you get a chance to tune in to the wave of shameful pleasure: the film is so monstrous that it is impossible to tear yourself away from it, and the character-functions begin to evoke sympathy (although, perhaps, all this is due to compassion for the actors).
Let’s venture to suggest that everything is cyclical: the first “Jeepers Creepers” looked, albeit convincing, but an exposition of Stephen King’s “It”—theories even proliferate on the Web that different incarnations of the same creature are behind the murders. Once a decade (27 years or 23 years), the monster wakes up and begins to feed, giving special preference to victims whose spirit and mind are bound by fear. Salva deftly adapted the pattern of evil and, it seems, even bowed to the inspirer, giving the main character the name Derry after the name of the cursed town in Maine, where Pennywise lived. 21 years later, enthusiasts in their own way tell how they remembered the horror film from childhood, turning the reboot into an inspired chatter of a schoolboy. The night before (while the parents did not catch) the boy watched a very scary film on TV about an immortal scarecrow that follows the smell, and this morning all classmates are doomed to hear this story, and at the same time those who got to the cinema in the fall of 2022.