‘Jeepers Creepers: Reborn’ Review: Keep Your Peepers Away
By Daniel Rester
The belated Jeepers Creepers 3 (2017) was a big disappointment for most fans of the horror series. Its failure, and the ongoing controversy surrounding director Victor Salva, led many to believe the Creeper was done. Then a surprise announcement came not long ago that a reboot film without Salva’s involvement was coming in the autumn of 2022, being the first film in a planned trilogy. Such a direction could have provided hope for fans and potential for the series. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case as Jeepers Creepers: Reborn is even worse than the third movie.
After an okay opening sequence that calls back to the original 2001 film, it’s all downhill once the main plot kicks in. Pregnant Laine (Sydney Craven) and her annoying boyfriend Chase (Imran Adams) head to a horror festival in Louisiana. They win an escape room prize where they will be put in a spooky house near the festival. Once inside, Laine, Chase, and others must fight for their lives as the Creeper (Jarreau Benjamin) hunts them.
Jeepers Creepers: Reborn, written by Sean-Michael Argo and directed by Timo Vuorensola, takes forever to set things up; the 88-minute film doesn’t even get to the escape room house setting until 50 minutes in. So the first half is pretty dull while the second half feels rushed. There are also half-baked ideas, such as the Creeper wanting pregnant women and cult members worshiping the creature. The human characters are poorly drawn, the Creeper doesn’t act like the Creeper half the time, and the dialogue ranges from banal to bad. “How do you like those peepers, bitch?” is an actual line in the film.
Things don’t get better outside of the story and dialogue. The execution of the technical aspects is also poor. The Creeper makeup is downgraded this time around as he looks like an inferior cosplay version of the original Creeper. The CGI, amateur green screen backgrounds, and overlit sets make Jeepers Creepers: Reborn look cheap too. Not even the kill scenes are very suspenseful or exciting, with some of them entirely off-screen.
A handful of things work. Dee Wallace pops up in that opening scene and does what she can, and the rest of the cast is serviceable too. The music score by Ian Livingstone is fine as well. And the horror festival setting is a fun idea to incorporate into this series, though it would have been even better if the Creeper walked around the festival unnoticed among the dressed-up visitors.
Jeepers Creepers: Reborn isn’t just a missed opportunity but an inept and embarrassing entry in the series. It’s sad that the series just keeps getting worse and worse as the original film is actually quite entertaining (and has a terrific Justin Long performance in it). If this really is the start of a new trilogy, I have zero anticipation for the next films if they go in a similar direction.
My Grade: 3/10 (letter grade equivalent: D)
Running Time: 1h 28min
JEEPERS CREEPERS: REBORN OPENED IN THEATERS ON SEPTEMBER 19, 2022.
