INSOMNIA (2002)

"Don't lose your way."

Crooked Los Angeles homicide detective Al Pacino and his partner are called to the remote fishing village of Nightmute, Alaska to investigate the murder of a local teenager.  Right from the very beginning, Pacino’s character seems unstable, but then when stress and the town’s perpetual summer daylight cause him to not be able to sleep (I guess, they haven’t heard of blackout curtains yet in Nightmute), Pacino starts stumbling around like the Drunk Stork in the Looney Tunes cartoons.  “Congratu…congr…congratulations. You’re a mother.”  Soon, Pacino’s sleepwalking existence turns into a nightmare when he shoots and kills his partner. D’oh!

INSOMNIA is a good film and definitely watchable.  Unfortunately, the emotional pace of the film is flat for pretty much the entire film.  Yeah, yeah there are a few moments of heightened interest (the fog scene, the dog corpse), but for the vast majority of the film we’re merely watching two despicable characters going around being turds.  Then again EBOLA SYNDROME is one of the most entertaining things ever filmed and it’s just a single dude running around like a total asshole for the entire movie, so what do I know?  I’m so goddamn heartbroken and confused and depressed that I cannot construct full thoughts.  I should lay off the serious movies for a few more months.  I thought I was ready.  I guess not.  It was sad, it was sad, it was sad.

Eh, whatever.  I enjoyed the film and always love watching Al Pacino chewing up scenery.  Steady pace, gorgeous locations, above average acting, one guy with an annoying mustache, a Pantera poster, a video store sign over a florist shop, ol’ girl from GINGER SNAPS, good lighting, nowhere even close to being as violent as I had expected, Twin Peaks vibes, SEVEN vibes, THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS vibes.  Good movie, but it could have been much better.

Original - Insomnia (1997)

JEEPERS CREEPERS (2001)

Two annoying fucks, a brother and a sister, are driving down a road that apparently gets very little traffic. As these two dipshits prattle on about dumb bullshit, an old truck rides up on their ass and starts acting a fool. It’s almost like the opening scene for NATIONAL LAMPOON'S CHRISTMAS VACATION.  Except less exciting.  Eventually, the truck passes and the unfortunate viewer is left alone again with these two assholes. It’s torture. Soon after, they spot the truck parked near an abandoned church. The driver is out of the vehicle and appears to be cosplaying as Eddie from the Stranger in a Strange Land album cover while dumping what we hope is a sack full of JEEPERS CREEPERS blu rays down into a hole, but we all know that it’s really a dead body. Being geniuses, our two heroes decide to go in for a better look. They eventually discover that the owner of the beater whip is a creepy critter called the Creeper. He’s ancient and his body is constructed from various parts of multiple victim’s bodies, kinda like how the Creeper character itself is cobbled together from other fictional personalities.

That might come across as mean and sound like I’m talking shit. That’s because I am. I had the extreme misfortune of seeing JEEPERS CREEPERS opening weekend back in 2001 and I wanted to fucking slit my throat.  I was rolling my handsome eyes like a madman and in shock, hell I'm still in shock, that somebody could get paid actual money (money that can then be used to purchase things!) to write something so bland and soulless.

Slow pace, many scenes set in the dark, shit ending, repellent casting (I think the only character that couldn’t have been cast better was the Creeper himself...Jonathan Breck actually did a fine job), zero nudity (unless you count the bullshit looking dead bodies), very little blood, main characters so stupid that I don’t know how they ever even made it to adulthood, bland clothing, a lot of boring colours, zero scares, needless psychic character spouting off dumb shit, overly complicated backstory on the Creeper.

Overall, JEEPERS CREEPERS itself is a shitty movie. Easily a 2/10, but I have found myself revisiting it occasionally over the years simply because it’s so much fun to talk shit about.  It's awesome.  As the series goes on, the Creeper gets a little more interesting in later films, but he's never been portrayed to even 10% of his full potential.  A talented writer could easily make the Creeper into a total badass.  Maybe one day that will happen.  I'd even be happy with a hardcore, super violent and scary Jeepers Creepers novel.

In my notes I scribbled down "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee vs. Jeepers Creepers" and " Jeepers Creepers vs. Dumb and Dumber", but I never found a place to shoehorn in those jokes. Sorry.

[I actually watched all of Jeepers Creepers films in a row when I revisited the original film for this review.  No clue if I'll ever get inspired to review the rest of the series, but as for now, the order from "best" to worst is… 3, 1, 4, 2.]

Part 2 - Jeepers Creepers 2
Part 3 - Jeepers Creepers 3
Part 4 - Jeepers Creepers: Reborn