Sunday, August 31, 2003
Some would say that it's silly to question the logic of a slasher flick, but I figure that the $6.50 I spent on Jeepers Creepers 2 would be more fully recompensed if I nitpicked about its ending. (Spoilers ahead!)
If you haven't seen the trailers, the Creeper is strange flying battish/humanoid creature that gets to eat for 23 days every 23rd spring. The vengeful father in the film, who has lost his son to the Creeper, displays MacGyver-like acumen and mild good sense throughout the movie, by converting a post-driver into a wicked spear launcher with which he thwarts the Creeper. He doesn't actually kill the Creeper - rather, he prevents the Creeper from killing a few people by inconveniencing him with spears through the head until the Creeper's 23 days are up and he goes back into hibernation.
Now, despite living for thousands of years, the Creeper appears thoroughly organic throughout the movie - he is readily wounded by sharp objects, he has limbs blown off, etc., though he eventually heals those wounds by hunting down replacement parts from his victims. He also appears to be non-reproductive, (unlike, say, Indian meal moths). In short, the Creeper is not invulnerable.
This takes us to my problem with the film's conclusion, which is an obligatory sequel-setting scene. We flash forward 22 years and 362 days from the end of the film's feastivities and see that the father has decided to take the hibernating body of the Creeper and hang it up in his barn (charging visitors $5 to see "the bat from hell"). But since he is aware of the 23 year life cycle of the creeper, he guards the desiccated body with his trusty spear launcher and a shotgun, while rockin' away his rockin' chair (he's old now).
Where has the father's good sense and facility with farm implements gone? Why didn't he take the body and put it through a wood chipper, then put the chips in acid, then cast whatever remained in concrete, etc.? He had 22 years and 362 days. I think even the Creeper would have had a hard time awakening if he were in 10000 acid eaten parts encased in 10000 separate blocks of concrete strewn across several deep sea floors.
If you wanted to set up a sequel, why not have the Creeper mysteriously sink into the ground after being speared by the father, outside of the reaches of any vengeful humans? Sadly, given the radical discontinuity of most slasher sequels, we probably will not be given the pleasure of seeing the Creeper eat the old man at the beginning of Jeepers Creepers 3.
So why do I have a problem with the dad hanging the Creeper up in his barn, but not with the premise of a hibernating battish humanoid human eater with a thing for the #23? Because the former is a matter of internal inconsistency (i.e. including in the film both the premise that the dad is MacGyver-like and also that he is a dumbass) while the latter is simply an absurd horror movie premise. Money well spent. ¶ 3:16 AM
If you haven't seen the trailers, the Creeper is strange flying battish/humanoid creature that gets to eat for 23 days every 23rd spring. The vengeful father in the film, who has lost his son to the Creeper, displays MacGyver-like acumen and mild good sense throughout the movie, by converting a post-driver into a wicked spear launcher with which he thwarts the Creeper. He doesn't actually kill the Creeper - rather, he prevents the Creeper from killing a few people by inconveniencing him with spears through the head until the Creeper's 23 days are up and he goes back into hibernation.
Now, despite living for thousands of years, the Creeper appears thoroughly organic throughout the movie - he is readily wounded by sharp objects, he has limbs blown off, etc., though he eventually heals those wounds by hunting down replacement parts from his victims. He also appears to be non-reproductive, (unlike, say, Indian meal moths). In short, the Creeper is not invulnerable.
This takes us to my problem with the film's conclusion, which is an obligatory sequel-setting scene. We flash forward 22 years and 362 days from the end of the film's feastivities and see that the father has decided to take the hibernating body of the Creeper and hang it up in his barn (charging visitors $5 to see "the bat from hell"). But since he is aware of the 23 year life cycle of the creeper, he guards the desiccated body with his trusty spear launcher and a shotgun, while rockin' away his rockin' chair (he's old now).
Where has the father's good sense and facility with farm implements gone? Why didn't he take the body and put it through a wood chipper, then put the chips in acid, then cast whatever remained in concrete, etc.? He had 22 years and 362 days. I think even the Creeper would have had a hard time awakening if he were in 10000 acid eaten parts encased in 10000 separate blocks of concrete strewn across several deep sea floors.
If you wanted to set up a sequel, why not have the Creeper mysteriously sink into the ground after being speared by the father, outside of the reaches of any vengeful humans? Sadly, given the radical discontinuity of most slasher sequels, we probably will not be given the pleasure of seeing the Creeper eat the old man at the beginning of Jeepers Creepers 3.
So why do I have a problem with the dad hanging the Creeper up in his barn, but not with the premise of a hibernating battish humanoid human eater with a thing for the #23? Because the former is a matter of internal inconsistency (i.e. including in the film both the premise that the dad is MacGyver-like and also that he is a dumbass) while the latter is simply an absurd horror movie premise. Money well spent. ¶ 3:16 AM
