Directed By Timo Vuorensola

Starring – Sydney Craven, Imran Adams, Jarreau Benjamin

The Plot – The film unfolds as the Horror Hound festival holds its first ever event in Louisiana, where it attracts hundreds of geeks, freaks and die-hard horror fans from far and wide. Among them is fanboy Chase (Adams) and his girlfriend Laine (Craven), who is forced to come along for the ride. But as the event approaches, Laine begins to experience unexplained premonitions and disturbing visions associated with the town’s past, and in particular, local legend/urban myth The Creeper. As the festival arrives and the blood-soaked entertainment builds to a frenzy, Laine believes that something unearthly has been summoned and that she is at the center of it

Rated R for violence involving gore and adult language

Jeepers Creepers: Reborn – Official Trailer – YouTube

POSITIVES

Without a doubt, the single best aspect of this franchise after four films is still the practical designs in make-up and prosthetics that give a grotesquely fantastical essence to the integrity of the characters and corresponding gore. This is most appreciated in a film of this quality, where computer generation is all of the craze for a majority of the movie, yet the design of The Creeper and his trail of blood still prove that a heart is beating somewhere beneath the various scar tissue from a mostly uninspired franchise. The look of the beastly antagonist further distances itself from its predecessors, similar to the structure of the narrative, with aging and scales in texture conveying a lived-in emphasis to the legend of the character. Likewise, while the depiction slightly obscures the impact of the devastation, there are some unique measures of kill and torture in this film that at least momentarily feed the horror hound within all of us. The blood flows like wine, obscuring subtleties quite quickly in the process, all the while combining with it no shortage of limbs and gouges that not only make the most of its coveted R-rating, but also transcribes visceral vengeance to an antagonist who proves that age doesn’t slow him down, but only make him hungrier.

NEGATIVES

“Die or live long enough to see yourself become the villain”. A quote made famous by “The Dark Knight”, but one that lends itself equally to the barrage of iconic horror franchises that have overstayed their welcome, and because of such suffer the fate of cheaply uninspired imitators. That is the perfect stamping to “Jeepers Creepers Reborn” because Vuorensola feels like he has come from the Rob Zombie school of directing, where pulpy style and attitude feel like substitutes for compelling story and characterization. On the storytelling front, there are some clever ideas to flesh out the lore of the character, but they’re marred by a brief 83-minute run time and slashing editing schemes that never gives any of them the proper amount of exploration to properly flesh out. Beyond this, the protagonist characters themselves are not only terribly acted, underwhelming at every opportunity that requires even a little dramatic depth, but also coldly calculated in chemistry to the point that I don’t buy them in their respective roles from the word go. Their personalities are the kind of one-dimensional outlines that practically echo their intentions long before the conflict materializes, and when combined with the worst kind of D-grade level horror dialogue, makes this an insufferable affair that I can’t even have fun insulting. Aside from this, the technical merits are embarrassing, with a student film level of cinematography with its own abundance of problems deserving of a review. The presentation is ghastly, manipulating the sharpness and contrast of the color in ways that continuously distract throughout scenes involving attention in long-winded dialogue, and the special effects in green-screen I can safely say are among the worst that I have ever seen in my cinematic career. Sweet Jesus Christ, these generated backdrops are appalling, manufacturing an artificial line of influence from the live action props and actors in each frame, all the while soiling what little atmospheric dread resonates within the integrity of the character with music video levels of artificiality. Finally, while i remotely commended the script for trying to distance itself from Victor Salva’s original vision, right down to spoofing the first film in the opening ten minutes, what follows in execution is a hodge-podge of horror ideas and subplots borrowed from various franchises, then shoe-horned here in ways that never fit appropriately to the beats of the character. When in doubt, reach for voodoo. It’s used here to explain anything supernatural, taking this once simplistic but effective villain, and now making him a god of sorts on the Louisiana landscape. In addition to this, there’s now a cult of worshippers, which not only feels borrowed from “Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers” but is followed through with about as much purpose and influence as that film, coming and going with the kind of velocity that I wish the pacing of the film persisted through. It leads to one of those inevitable groaners of an ending that is shoehorned between a laughably bad physical resolution and last second twist that made me burp out “HUH?”. It’s the last attempt at inspiring hope for the future of this franchise, and one that makes me firmly believe these films are condemned to a life of Fathom one-night releases.

OVERALL
“Jeepers Creepers Reborn” is the Hot Topic of horror sequels, in that it’s attempting to be trendy, failing to be cool, and twelve dollars more than I should’ve rightfully spent. While Vuorensola does maintain the lore and legend of the character, his dependency of artificiality in backdrops and actors conveys an unfinished aspect to his product that is equally conveyed in disconnected registry to his audience, leaving this an assortment of various parts without a heart or brain between it.

My Grade: 2/10 of F-