- Directed by Timo Vuorensola
- Written by Sean-Michael Argo
- Stars Sydney Craven, Imran Adams, Jarreau Benjamin
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 28 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNH2bRZ6gJw
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This one was a step down in quality from the first 3. A different actor is playing the Creeper, they redid how he looks and eased him a little more into a “Jason from Friday the 13th” kind of killer. It’s a less scary story with some elements that don’t make much sense. We didn’t hate it, but it was a disappointment.
Synopsis
Ronald and Marie, an old couple, drive through the countryside in the afternoon. A big truck with the license plate “BEATINGU” comes up behind them. It’s not the same truck, but it’s got the same horn. They pass the truck later and see the driver dumping a body into a pipe near an old church. The truck pursues them and runs them off the road. Ronald writes down the license number to call the police when he gets the chance. As they return to the road, they see the Creeper change his license plates to something more generic.
Ronald wants to return to that church and see what was in the pipe. They arrive at the old church, so we can see that this is all before the first film. They check out the pipe, and Marie screams.
We pull out and see that this is an “unsolved mystery” show on the Internet. Liane and Chase are watching it on their phone. That happened twenty-something years ago. She laughs at his gullibility, but he’s into all the creepy monster stuff like Mothman. Chase tells her the story of the twenty-three-year legend. Didn’t they make three of those “Creepy Creeper” movies? The pair is on their way to a horror convention, but the location doesn’t seem to be on any map (it must be a great convention center).
We see that Chase is planning to propose to Laine sometime very soon. Elsewhere, we see a withered, filthy, half-dead-looking creeper crawling in the dirt and pulling his skin off. Waking up after 23 years is apparently pretty rough.
Sam, one of Laine’s friends, calls Laine, and she says that she’s probably pregnant. He gets out of the car to pee, and the newborn Creeper eats his face.
Laine stops in at a creepy antique store and gets creepy directions from a creepy psychic proprietor who calls someone after they leave and says, “We have a tree bearing fruit.” Chase wants to cosplay for the convention, but Laine pretends to be disinterested. He turns on the TV, and they’re doing a show from the convention.
Laine and Chase arrive at the “Horror Hound” and see a weird preacher out front talking about sinners. Kevin said this Horror Hound gathering “is a ghetto horror ren-fest, not a convention.” We see the Creeper walking around just outside the grounds.
There’s a throwing game, and one of the weapons is one of the Creepers, shurikens. Laine finds it disturbing. They’re reproductions, of course, because the Creeper is only a legend. Right? No, Laine gets a vision from handling one of them, of a cult with her involved.
At midnight, they have a “Creeper Draw.” Madame Carnage is the master of ceremonies. The grand prize is an escape room for two that’s Creeper-themed. Lady Manilla draws for the winner, and we see that she’s the creepy psychic from earlier. Guess whose name she draws? Yep, we saw her rig the drawing earlier.
So Chase and Laine win the prize of spending the night in the “Creeper House,” as an Internet show. Jaime, the producer, is coming along to film everything along with Michael, Carrie, and Stu. They leave for the prize as the Creeper knocks out all the Wi-Fi for the convention by knocking the tower over with his truck. The Creeper heads into the convention with his weapons.
As the group walks to the haunted house, cameraman Michael gets eaten. The Creeper swoops in from somewhere and grabs Laine. Chase tries to convince the others what happened, but they don’t believe him. Then they find Michael’s body, and they believe that.
Laine wakes up tied to a table as the Creeper cuts into her. Chase, Carrie, Jaime, and Stu go into the haunted house, and the cultists (he has cultists now?) seal them inside. Jaime thinks it’s all part of the escape room gimmick, and they want out.
They go upstairs and find Sam’s body hanging from the rafters. The Creeper breaks in through a skylight, and Stu shoots him in the hand. Then he blasts them with an ultrasonic whistle noise. Downstairs, Laine cuts her ropes and gets loose. She grabs a knife and some shurikens from a nearby table and starts looking for a way out.
Chase finds a phone and calls 911, but they think he’s on drugs. Jaime steps into a bear trap. Laine has another vision about cultists. The Creeper gets Carrie and plays his favorite song as he eats her brain. The survivors find an altar and a secret dungeon full of corpses. Laine tells Chase that she’s pregnant, and the baby is what the Creeper wants.
Jaime dies next, and the Creeper gets more play out of his only record. The Creeper faces down Laine while Stu and Chase sneak upstairs. She stabs him on both sides of the head with shurikens, and he’s not happy about it.
Chase and Stu throw a huge wind vane off the roof, impaling the Creeper right through the head. Then a bunch of crows attack, and Stu falls to his death. The birds swarm the Creeper’s body until he’s all gone. Chase and Laine stagger out to the road as the police finally arrive.
The crows all gather together in the graveyard and reconstitute a new Creeper.
Commentary
The creature has been re-designed to look like a cross between a giant Gremlin and a burn victim. Nope. Didn’t like it. They didn’t want to pay for the rights to the original “Jeepers Creepers” song, so they made up a new one with no tune whatsoever.
Most outdoor sets are done on a soundstage, and it all looks pretty artificial. There’s way too much CGI here that is far too noticeable. It was obvious, but it gave the film’s outdoor scenes an interesting look, so that was actually OK.
It’s pretty bad overall. Who takes a monster as interesting as the Creeper and thinks it’s necessary to put him in a haunted house film— with cultists, no less? What are the cultists getting out of all this? Why did the Creeper suddenly want a baby?