Jeepers Creepers (2001)

Image credit: Jeepers Creepers: Gene Page

GRIM 'CREEPERS' The flesh-eating monster has a crush on Justin Long

The first half hour taps a mood that can only be described as ''Texas Chain Saw'' nostalgia. A solitary car on a lonely country road. A couple of pretty young people in the car (in this case, a brother and sister who wage combat by talking dirty). The rural banality broken by an unsettling image, glimpsed in long shot: a figure who looks vaguely like a scarecrow tossing what appear to be live wrapped bodies down a rusty silo.

So far, so creepy. Moments later, the brother accidentally falls down the silo (don't even ask), landing in a cavernous dungeon pit full of surgically mangled and resewn corpses. At this point, Jeepers Creepers forfeits any pretense to suggestive horror; it turns into a grab-bag freak show as desperate as it is arbitrary. The ominous atmosphere of redneck Americana gives way to yet another hyperbolic slasher cartoon, featuring a flesh-eating killer who looks like a rather sorry cross between Alien, Leprechaun, Freddy Krueger, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. He's about as scary as a rubber action toy.