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jeepers Creepers II - Blu-ray Review

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4 beers

There are few things as terrifying to me then to be trapped on a school bus with a bunch of High School jocks.  Talk about a total freak-out of testosterone, sweaty gym bags, and meat hooks.  This is the territory exploited by Jeepers Creepers 2, now celebrating a Collector’s Edition release this week on blu-ray thanks to Scream Factory.  It is a horror film that takes isolation to a whole new level and manages to also become a metaphor for the 9/11 attacks that snuffed out the meteoric rise of its original film over the labor day holiday.  Seriously.    

Convinced by Francis Ford Coppola to make a sequel to his surprise hit horror film, writer/director Victor Salva streamlined his approach to the Creeper character (still portrayed by Johnathan Breck), upped the number of targets for the sinister character, and, arguably, made a better horror film.  The film – centralized to an open field and a stranded school bus – is tighter and more conventional and, even if it has less scares than the original, consistently fires on all cylinders making it a sequel worth revisiting. 

Starring Ray Wise (of Twin Peaks fame) and featuring a cameo from Justin Long (who starred in the original), the film takes place only a couple of days after the original one as the Creeper wraps up his 23-day cycle of devouring souls.  It opens; however, in the early pre-sunset hours as Jack Taggart (Wise) watches his youngest son being dragged through a cornfield and then yanked up into the sky by a winged devil.  With an intense close-up on his eyes, we then fade to the school bus which is soon to be stranded by a couple of blow-outs.  It is in how these two storylines converge which makes the second installment in the series an interesting one.

It is an action movie first.  It seems that Salva wanted to pull a James Cameron and made the stage a bit bigger for the Creeper’s mighty return.  Think T2.  Think Aliens.  There are a lot of nice set pieces involving that bus, a pickup-truck, and a homemade harpoon.  And, as Salva confesses in one of the NEW interviews included with the release, he’s likely to never do it again.  Way too meticulous.  And not fun at all. 

First, the Creeper taunts and attacks his victims, picking them from the side of the road as everyone frets over the blowout.  Then, he targets various members of the team and its cheerleaders from within the bus.  Director of Photography Don E. FauntLeRoy, who shot the original, confesses that he was sick of being inside the bus by the end of the shoot.  Creatively drained, you can see just how exhausting this sort of update on Hitchcock’s Lifeboat could be for the crew.  And, as evident by the amount of angles utilized from within the bus, they left nary a corner of the vehicle unused.

Co-starring Garikayi Mutambirwa, Eric Nenninger, and Nicki Aycox as Minxie Hayes, the girl who receives the visions warning the team of the Creeper, Jeepers Creepers 2 aims high with an above-average script, hits low, and – with more flying footage of “the bat from hell” – is a sequel that energizes its fan base effectively.  No wonder then it was another hit for the director and the studio. 

With a third film coming out from Salva later this year (or early next), Scream Factory have done the fans of the films and the monster itself a solid with the releasing of both films in this series on blu-ray with new art and new interviews.

Don’t be left in the dark on this release.  Scoop it up already.

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jeepers Creepers II - Blu-ray Review

MPAA Rating: R for horror violence and language
Runtime:
104 mins
Director
: Victor Salva
Writer:
Victor Salva
Cast:
Jonathan Breck, Ray Wise, Nicki Aycox
Genre
: Horror
Tagline: Feed the Fear
Memorable Movie Quote: "You making fun of my lock box? Because everything in this thing has saved my sweet ass at least once."
Distributor:
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Official Site: https://www.facebook.com/JeepersCreepersMovie/
Release Date:
August 29, 2003
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:
Jube 14, 2016
Synopsis: Set a few days after the original, a championship basketball team's bus is attacked by The Creeper, the winged, flesh-eating terror, on the last day of his 23-day feeding frenzy.

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[tab title="Blu-ray Review"]

jeepers Creepers II - Blu-ray Review

Blu-ray

Blu-ray Details:

Collector's Edition

Available on Blu-ray - June 14, 2016
Screen Formats: 2.40:1
Subtitles
: English SDH
Audio:
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit); English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Discs: Blu-ray Disc; Two-disc set (2 BD)
Region Encoding: Locked to region A

Scream Factory presents Jeepers Creepers 2 with the same transfer that was previously released by MGM.  There wasn’t a flaw in it so why not re-use it?    Colors are strong, particularly the opening moments in the cornfields with the scarecrows.  Black levels are clearly defined, too.  Important considering the film takes place during the evening.  Shadows are detailed.  The DTS-HD MA 5.1 track is solid and aggressive.

Supplements:

Commentary:

  • Found on the first disc, there are two commentaries that were originally included with the previous release.  The first features Salva and the cast talking about the movie and the second features Jonathan Breck paired with some of the artists that designed the make-up of The Creeper.

Special Features:

With Salva, FauntLeRoy, editor Ed Marx and actor Tom Tarantini provided the majority of the NEW information about the making of the movie, the supplemental material is pretty interesting.  As a result, it is also spread across two discs and includes the old supplemental information provided with the previous release.  Fans will want to check this out.

  • Jeepers Creepers 2: Then and Now (23 min)
  • A Father’s Revenge (15 min)
  • Don’t Get Off the Bus (21 min)
  • A Day in Hell (27 min)
  • Camera, Creeper: The Making of Jeepers Creepers 2 (14 min)
  • Creeper Creation (11 min)
  • Digital Effects (5 min)
  • Creeper Composer (9 min)
  • Storyboards for Scenes Not Filmed (10 min)
  • Deleted Scenes (19 min)
  • Photo Galleries
  • Theatrical Trailer

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