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

SUSPIRIA (2018)

"They'll hollow me out and eat my cunt on a plate."

So close, but yet so far away.

West Berlin, 1977. A young American woman moves to Germany to join a prestigious (and creepy as fuck) all female dance academy. Things start out okay, but it isn’t too long before she starts to notice that some sinister shenanigans are afoot. Most of the shenanigan’s stem from the fact that the school is run by an evil coven of thousand-year-old witches in the middle of a power struggle.

SUSPIRIA, for those of you who don’t know (and there’s nothing wrong with not knowing…everybody has to learn something somewhere) is a remake of Dario Argento’s 1977 horror film of the same name. SUSPIRIA (1977) has a justifiable place in movie history (awesome musical score, bold use of colours, etc.), but it wasn’t a great film. So…that said, I was looking forward to checking out this remake.

The opening scene was a snoozer, but after that things start going along pretty good with a creepy atmosphere, surreal dream imagery and gruesome violence. Then, for some unknown reason things slow down and it just starts to drone on and on and on. For 152 minutes. I don’t mind horror films with long runtimes. Hell, MIDSOMMAR was 148 minutes and I love that movie, but the story has got to move forward! SUSPIRIA has way too much excess baggage and unneeded bullshit.

I’m not a filmmaker and nobody reads this bullshit, but off the top of my handsome head I’d say the entire Dr. Josef Klemperer character could have been left out of the story. Every scene with him drags on like torture. Secondly, the witch showdown climax sucked and looked like hell. After such a long build-up it was a huge disappointment. Also, what was the point of setting the film in 1977? Who gives a fuck?  My simple dmub brain just wants to see some creepy witch shit!

Excessive runtime that kills the film, bloated script, above average acting, completely unneeded casting / make-up gimmicks that take the viewer out of the film, promising moments of cool arthouse creepiness, a lot of drab colours, random arthouse nudity, various moments of obviously fake-looking computer graphics, impressive mirror effects, at least two David Bowie posters. SUSPIRIA is an interesting film, but when it’s all said and done, it just left me wanting to see yet another (and hopefully superior) remake. The story idea is way too awesome to be left like this.

[This has nothing to do with the review, but am I the only one that thinks Dakota Johnson's character in this film looks like Sarah Goldberg's character in Barry? It was kinda tripping me out.]

Original - Suspiria (1977)