Jeepers Creepers: Reborn (2022)

The fourth Jeepers Creepers picture arrives as a reboot, which is the industry term for starting over without the burden of continuity or, apparently, competence. A young couple drives to a horror festival in rural Louisiana. There is a Creeper, a twenty-three year curse, a raffle, and a plantation house converted into an escape room, a detail that would feel like satire if the film had the energy for satire. Critical reception was unkind. Fifteen critics on Rotten Tomatoes, zero of them persuaded. The production also drew a lawsuit from a prior producer who regarded it as an unauthorized fan film, which is a more compelling narrative than anything in the actual runtime.

On the matter of social consciousness, the film is nearly a blank slate, and this reads as genuine instead of strategic. Chase, the boyfriend, is played by a Black actor opposite a white female lead, and the pairing is handled with no commentary, no thematic weight, no knowing glance toward the audience. Laine, our heroine, frees herself from bondage, throws a shuriken with unnatural skill, and blinds the creature before a weather vane finishes the job. This is final-girl procedure, inherited from decades of slasher grammar, not an argument about anything. The screenplay has no interest in race, class, climate, or the body politic, and no interest in the body either.

The creature eats, the crows feast, the villain regenerates for a sequel the box office did not especially request. No monologue instructs us on how to live. No environmental parable, no class warfare, no meditation on identity. A film about a winged ghoul devouring festivalgoers in Louisiana has elected to be about exactly that. We can respect the honesty, if not the execution. The ledger stays light, and the Creeper, at least, remains refreshingly undecided on the issues of the day. It simply hungers. There is something almost classical in that, and almost nothing else here to admire.