Jeepers Creepers 2

The Sewer craves the salve of the summer event-horror movie. Surely it must still feel good to turn off the brain and groove to the chills like it did for Jaws or Star Wars.

Since then Independence Day and The Haunting remake have muddied the waters considerably.

And so we come to Jeepers Creepers 2, from the mind of the real creeper, Victor Salva. From somewhere numerologically-challenged comes the Creeper, with this catchy hook: Every 23 years, for 23 days, he gets to Eat. Ooohh, so scary.

Creeper’s about at the tail-end of his current dinner hour. Luckily a busload of hunky teenagers breaks down right where the Creeper likes to feed. But first we get oily, sun-bathing hunks, general worship of hunky young boys, and shirtless hunks closely lining up to pee together while discussing personal relationships and looking at each other’s weenies.

Then the Creeper comes along and systematically, oh-so-systematically, eats them. Throw in a bunch of racial tension (which strains in use, but at least gives you something to think about) and a couple of farming dorks who make a big gun, and you’ve got Jeepers Creepers 2.

Credit where due; because the Sewer likes good credit, goes to a gorgeous, commercial-slick movie with effective but screeching and ultimately numbing set-pieces. How many times can you take the kids jabbering at each other, then everything gets quiet, then the creature suddenly appears and the kids scream and yell for 2 minutes before someone dies, then it happens another 20 times?

It’s a glossy, mechanically-paced snoozer disguised as a thrill-ride, like if your cart in the funhouse kept going past the same scene. Boring!

Not even the subtext of Salva’s personal sleaziness can make Jeepers Creepers 2 more interesting, and the numerous self-serving extras on the DVD – tailor made to further the commercial-mythologizing of the Creeper – are just empty calories. Less a summer roller-coaster of a movie, this is only a beautifully wrapped empty box.