Director Victor Salva is back with his sequel to the very critically and
commercially successful original, but is it good enough to live up to the
original film’s reputation? I purposely waited days to do this review
as I was very unsure how I felt about the film after seeing it.
Opening on the same day the last film ended, the Creeper is lurking in the
Taggart family’s corn field in a genuinely creepy moment that ends with
Jack Taggart’s son Billy being taken away by the Creeper. The hunt to
avenge his son’s death begins here.
Day and a high school basketball team, their cheerleaders, coaches and
assorted helpers breakdown on the infamous and very deserted Highway .
‘Down and disabled’ it isn’t long before the Creeper comes for a kid
buffet and as he only has day left to feed he goes all out.
I liked the set up and thought it was very well thought out and well
directed. Once the main action began however, I noticed that there was a
new sense of humour present that was disgustingly campy and I wasn’t sure
how to take it. As humour I don’t think that it worked, but it did
disgust me.
The main flaw as far as I was concerned was the inclusion of too many
characters, which resulted in weak deaths and characters disappearing
without trace. What happened to Rhonda? did Izzy definitely die? and if
Chelsea was running through the fields with the rest of the kids, then how
did she suddenly pop up back on the bus? Yes we can find answers to these
questions if we think about it later but when you’re caught up in the fast
pace of the film you don’t have time to think about it and therefore it
appears to be a sloppy editing job.
The film also opened up lots of new possibilities but ultimately left a
lot of unanswered questions, which if never answered in a future sequel
will niggle me forever more. Did the Creeper get everyone that he had
picked? was he just killing some people because he needed parts urgently
or because they were a threat (such as the couple in the white car who
intended to report the brokendown bus) or did he want them too? There are
all sorts of inconsistencies with the Creepers back story, which is a
shame as there were nods to the first film that I really appreciated.
The cast are all adequate but there are too many characters for us to get
to know them properly and once again the male characters are all objects
of lust sunbathing together, peeing together (the coach even comments on
how unusual this is) and for the love of God, did Jake really have to pull
his jeans and his boxers down to his ankles to pee standing right next to
a potential gay guy, practically begging him to take a look!! We didn’t
need to see that, not to mention they were on a flat open space and I
seriously doubt anyone would do that in front of kids and their
teachers!
OVERALL SUMMARY
Ultimately the Creeper will never be truly scary to me because he’s a hell
beast. The film is very entertaining and fun with witty dialogue, but
once again is far too full of homoerotic letcherous material that is far
more vile than anything the Creeper does.
