Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003)

Episode 97, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast

Todd:  Hello and welcome to another episode of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Today’s episode, we’re getting into another request. This is 2003’s Jeepers Creepers 2 by request by a few people, actually, a couple at least. Adam and Megan have both asked for this. And so, yeah, we already reviewed Jeepers Creepers 1 quite some time ago. I hadn’t seen it up until that point and was really pretty pleasantly surprised by it.   I think, much like Jeepers Creepers 2, Craig had seen it a 1000000 times already. 

Craig:  Yep. Yep. Yep. 

Todd:  So, this was also my first time going into it, and it’s very different film, I think, from the first Jeepers Creepers. 

Craig:  Yeah. It is. And and one of the things that I liked so much about the first movie was that there was so much mystery. You didn’t know what was going on for the longest time. And one of the things that I liked about the first one was that you really thought that it was just some creepy 

Todd:  guy 

Craig:  doing this stuff. And you didn’t find out until about halfway through the movie that it was actually a monster. And, of course, in the sequel, most people I would assume are already going in knowing kind of what this villain is all about, knowing that he’s a supernatural villain. And so I think that this movie kind of had that working against it, but they just embraced it from the beginning and made him a scary monster throughout. And it worked. As far as sequels go, I think this is a really strong sequel. I think sequels are really hit or miss. With some movies, you’ve got enough mythology, you’ve got enough story that a sequel just makes sense and and it carries the the story further.   And and then sometimes 

Todd:  not. You know, sometimes 

Craig:  sometimes, sequels just get into some kind of silly territory and they’re they’re big letdowns. I don’t think this movie is a letdown at all. I I think that it’s a a strong movie on its own. Is it perfect? No. I think it drags on maybe a little bit too long, but for the most part, as far as sequels go, I think it’s it’s pretty solid. 

Todd:  You know, talking about what makes sequels bad and that is maybe when they try a little too hard to be different. You know, it seems like sequels can do one of 2 things wrong. 1, they can just rehash the old movie like just basically follow the same themes, don’t add anything new to it or they can kind of go the other the pendulum could swing in the complete opposite direction and they screw up so much or change, I should say, so much of what people liked about the original that it seems it doesn’t even seem like a sequel, you know. It’s like it’s own movie with elements of the old one and that just disappoints the fans who are excited about the sequel in the first place. So I think what this movie does really right in any case is it picks up right where that first one left off and it goes with the flow and it really doesn’t change anything about it except like what you said, there’s no more mystery anymore. And I have to say that was the thing that I think kept me from really enjoying this movie. At least, you you know, when I was comparing it against the last one, there’s this there, you just get all these revelations. It’s it’s, oh, there’s this creepy guy.   Oh, he does these weird things with these bodies. Oh, he seems to be supernatural. And then, it’s like, he’s got wings? 

Craig:  Right. Right. You know, 

Todd:  it’s like one hit after another and it it gets pretty cool and then, I think, by about halfway through the movie or 2 thirds of the way through it, you realize this is just gonna be this these people against this guy, you know. It that’s what it ends up being and that is basically what this movie is from the very beginning to the very end. 

Craig:  Right. And and Victor Salva, who is the director of this, and I I I hate to even bring this up, but I feel like we should address it. It. We here at 2 guys in a chainsaw in no way condone Victor Salva’s criminal past. Victor Salva was tried and convicted of molesting his young male star of one of his first movies. And a lot of people are, you know, are very uncomfortable about that and and protest his movies because of that. And I understand that entirely. You know, the man, you know, he he did the Craig.   He served his time. Some people feel like he got off too easy. That may very well be the case. But nonetheless, he’s still making these movies and I’m still watching them. Again, I don’t condone any of any of his previous behavior, but, I can still try to appreciate him as an artist. But Salva never intended he he didn’t want there to be a sequel to his first movie. That that’s why he made the rules the way he did. The the movie opens up with, you know, some some words on the screen that say every 23rd spring for 23 days, it gets to eat.   And Salva intentionally made that rule because he didn’t want a sequel. He thought, you know, if it’s this very limited span of time that this villain comes out and it’s only every 23 years, he thought, well, the only way there could be a sequel would be if we set it 23 years in the future, and he thought the studio would never go for that. But the first movie did very well and, the studio wanted a sequel and he decided to do it. And so the the way that they solved that was that they just set it in the exact same time frame, as the the first movie. It’s it’s like a few days later after the first movie. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And so everything that we see, in this second movie just happens in the next couple days after the first one. 

Todd:  And it’s, and it’s the last day. It’s the 23rd day, which is another guard against having a sequel to this film, which apparently is gonna be coming out anyway. 

Craig:  Right. And I don’t know. I I guess we could have saved it to talk about at the end, but there is a third one coming out, supposedly, maybe in October of this year. Apparently, it is set between the events of part 1 and part 2. 

Todd:  Oh my gosh. I guess you could have any number of days and you’re not gonna get any more than 23 Jeepers, Seac Creepers and its sequels. That’s that’s as far as they can go, I’m afraid. 

Craig:  I I guess. We will see. Oh. The okay. So this movie, I I I really like the opening scene of this movie. You know, it opens up onto this beautiful rural scene of a cornfield, and it’s all very bright and golden. And this little blonde boy, not little, he’s probably, I don’t know, 13, is setting up scarecrows, in in the cornfield, and his dad and his older brother are back over by the house. The the scarecrows are are fairly creepy in their own right, but after having, you know, some yelling back and forth with his dad and his older brother, Billy takes a look at one of the scarecrows, and it really quickly looks at him and then looks back.   And and I feel like that sounds really cheesy as I’m saying it, but it’s actually really pretty freaking spooky in the movie. And so he walks over to the scarecrow and he’s kinda looking at it, and he looks down at its feet and they are these kind of clawed bat like feet, which which freaks him out. And so he takes off running back towards the house or the barn or whatever. And the creeper, who has been posing as one of these scarecrows, leaps about 20 feet into the air, and then starts chasing him. And eventually, it just pounces like like a cougar pounces on him from behind, and he screams. And his dad and and brother hear, and they go running off into the cornfield to try to see what’s going on. And then we just see, the creeper has this kid by the hair and is just running, dragging him through this cornfield. And it’s just a I don’t know.   It just feels like a really tense scene because you see the dad who ends up being Jack Taggart senior. He’s played by Ray Wise. Ray Wise has been in everything. I mean, 

Todd:  he’s been in a 

Craig:  1000000 movies. A lot of people probably know him from Twin Peaks, but he’s been in tons of things. And he’s really good in this movie. He he looks, more haggard. He’s usually a very kind of distinguished, handsome looking guy, but he plays kind of a haggard farmer in in this movie. And they’re they’re chasing this thing that they don’t know what it is that’s dragging this little boy through the corn. And and just, you know, you see the look on this dad’s face and he’s scared and eventually the creeper jumps up and flies away carrying this boy and its talons, and you just see this dad and his other son watching it fly away, and there’s nothing that they can do, and and the camera lingers on Craig Wise’s eyes as he’s just watching his son being taken away and there’s nothing that he can do. And I feel like that scene really set a good tone for the movie.   It was a scary opening, I thought. And and that’s good. You want that in a horror movie. You want them to grab you right from the beginning. 

Todd:  Yeah. And again, it’s a it’s it’s a bit of a just like the first movie, it kinda just goes balls out. I think it was was was what I my impression of it. This one Todd, immediately, you’ve got a kid who’s just being taken away. And you’re never gonna see this kid again. I mean, he’s Right. Gone. From this point on, you get these sort of, parallel stories, although that might be a little too generous, of the father and his other son basically going out to hunt this thing trying to Right.   Find it. And, maybe there’s this idea in your head that he’s to rescue his son somehow or at least he hopes he’s going to, but it’s really only gonna be for revenge because his son is gone. 

Craig:  Right. 

Todd:  He’s not coming back. Once once this guy gets you, you’re gone. And so those are the stakes that we that we have and when it Todd doesn’t matter if you’re an adult or you’re a kid, some horror movies are not willing to go there and and this one definitely is. And so that that has that going forward, I think. Sure. So, then, we get a school bus, going through the middle of nowhere. I guess they’re coming back from a big game and so it’s I don’t know, like, the Glee Club and the cheerleaders or something on the on the bus along with the with the yeah. I mean, I I I what 

Craig:  what movie did you watch? There’s no gleeful. 

Todd:  I was supposed to believe that these are all cheerleaders. Is that who all the girls were? And then the boys 3 

Craig:  of them. It’s the it’s the football team, and and they’re the bantams. And 

Todd:  How could why would you only have 3 cheerleaders? I don’t know if she had that. 

Craig:  I don’t know. It’s rural America, Todd. Do you know? 3 or 4. Maybe 

Todd:  who knows? Yeah. Small towns. We love our cheerleaders in our in our football players. It should be 2 buses filled with the for those kids. 

Craig:  Yeah. But it’s it’s a bus full of, very good looking 

Todd:  Yeah. That’s for sure. 

Craig:  Teenage to 20 something male actors. Half of them, you know, shirtless. And again, I’m not really sure what Victor Salvo was thinking here. Here you know, he’s been convicted. He’s been convicted of, abusing a young male actor. And now he decides for this movie that he’s gonna cast all these shirtless male models. 

Todd:  Yeah. Really not helping himself much, is he? Probably not. Probably 

Craig:  at least not at least not with, you know, those people who are are still angry at him. But, yeah, they’re they’re the the bantams and they’re chanting over and over again this their fight song. 

Clip:  How long can they keep this up? 

Todd:  And the 

Clip:  smoke Forever. They have a fight song with the word cock in it. 

Todd:  Boy, you know, all this kinda went right by me, but now that you pointed it all out, Craig, it’s 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s it’s a little it’s a little Craig worthy, frankly, but, they’ve just won, like, they’re the state champions or or something. And so the bus is going down this lonesome highway, the same lonesome highway that we saw in the first movie, and we get introduced to these characters. Now, I I can’t decide if this is something about the movie that I don’t like, or if it doesn’t bother me. I can’t decide because there are so many people on this bus that you really can’t keep track of who they all are, and it’s really not all that important. The most interesting characters to me on the bus in the beginning are the bus driver. I mean, she looks like, NFL football player. She’s this big lady and, she’s got kind of this gruff voice and and she’s an interesting character.   And then you got the coach and the assistant coach. And then you just got all these kind of generic kids. Yeah. I I would say about 5050, white guys, black guys, and then some also, Hispanic guys as well. And then you’ve got these, 3, apparently the only 3 cheerleaders. And they’re just driving along, and and one of the main characters, or at least you get the sense that he’s supposed to be the main characters, is Scott, who is played by Eric Neninger. I have no idea, if he’s done anything else. If he has, I I don’t know what it is.   He’s the really broody one. And, like, he’s throughout the course of the movie, you come to find that he’s a total dick. Like, he’s just an asshole. Like, he’s broody, and you find out that the reason that he’s broody is because he didn’t get enough play time in the game. 

Clip:  Hannah’s got it in for me. Him and his little token white boy bars. I don’t know. Maybe I got the wrong skin color to get evil play on this team. 

Todd:  Oh my god. 

Craig:  He’s like, poor white boy. Like, jeez. Come on. It comes up also that he’s also a homophobe. Like, he’s just 

Todd:  He’s like every Dick. He’s just a jerk all the way around. And his girlfriend even make some comment about how, when we win a game, he doesn’t wanna have anything to do with me. And when we lose a game, he’s all over me or something like that. Yeah. He’s really needy needy guy. 

Craig:  He’s just an asshole. But, anyway, we we we, you know, are introduced to these kids, and they’re all pretty nondescript. And then they get a flat tire. And, the the adults get off the bus to inspect the flat tire and and they find in it a throwing star, basically, made out of bone, and there are teeth in it. And it doesn’t freak them out nearly as much as it should. 

Todd:  Well, this is interesting. Wonder where this came from. Who lives on the road? 

Craig:  So they think they’re stranded there for a while. And and while they’re there, they hear on the radio news reports about things from the previous movie. In the previous movie, the two main characters had stumbled upon this church where the creeper it was his lair apparently, and there were all these the the whole ceiling was kind of like a tapestry of, dead bodies stitched together, And they hear about that on the radio. 

Todd:  It was like HR Geiger and the Sistine Chapel sort of deal. Yeah. 

Craig:  That it very good description. 

Todd:  If if the Sistine Chapel were like a tiny little church out the middle of nowhere. Right. 

Craig:  Okay. So we so we get that set up, and and so they’re stranded for the time being. Then we cut back to Jack, the the dad from the beginning, and and his older son, Jack Junior, is kinda searching around in the cornfield, and he finds this knife, which ends up being the creeper’s knife. And it it seems like there’s something supernatural about it because he gives it to his dad and his dad, who is virtually catatonic. Like, obviously, this guy is very much disturbed by the fact that his kid is gone. And but he takes the knife, but then it somehow kind of supernaturally flies out of his hand and into the wall. So it the suggestion seemed to be to me that the knife, like, wanted to get back to its owner. 

Todd:  That’s what I thought initially but then it didn’t really that wasn’t very consistent. Yeah? 

Craig:  I feel like what Jack Yeah. I feel like what Jack decides about the knife is because it’s somehow connected to the creeper, maybe this is what we can kill it with. It’s not particularly fleshed out, but at the same time, whatever. Like, it it You do care. It didn’t do the right. It didn’t it didn’t play such a large role in the movie that I really particularly cared. But keeping us up with them, letting us know that they are still part of this movie. Yeah. 

Todd:  Which do you do have to continue to remind us about. Right. To be quite honest, which is why I said it was, you know, it was just a little generous to maybe call these parallel story lines because they only pop in, like like, when it’s helpful. Right. 

Craig:  Exact and then they show up at the end, and they’re very helpful, and and that’s great. 

Todd:  Helpful. Yeah. Yeah. 

Craig:  Yeah. But we but we gotta keep reminding the audience that they’re still still in this movie. After we see them, then we cut back to a not at all gratuitous shot of all of these hot male model types sunbathing on the 

Todd:  top of the bus. Wow. You’re right about this. You’re totally right. 

Craig:  Listen. Listen. I’m not complaining. 

Todd:  I’m just saying. Alright? 

Craig:  And then the 3 girls go off to smoke a cigarette together. And there’s kind of a funny scene there where the bus driver kind of catches them and they’re trying to hold their smoke in and kind of and then the bus driver, the lady bus driver ends up smoking with them. It’s kind of funny. Meanwhile, the boys all go off and whip their dicks out 

Todd:  together. Oh my goodness. 

Craig:  I can’t believe that this is a revelation to you. I mean, like, this is all I could think of when 

Todd:  I was watching this. To be honest, I did remember kinda going, wow. This is, like, you know, fairly unusual, like, you know, to see so much of this, but I I guess maybe in the back of my mind, I had put the Victor Silva thing, aside. You know? I had forgotten about his history. But, yeah, if you come into this movie with that fresh in your mind, you’re you’re definitely gonna be turning your head, I think, a few more times. 

Craig:  Yeah. So the the boys go off and pee together, all of them. And 

Todd:  I 

Craig:  don’t know if this was a direct tutorial choice or if it was, just, you know, an actor working on a whim, but one of the boys pulls his pants all the way down. Now, of course, you don’t see any of this. You just see them all from the waist up. But, like, I just thought it was an interesting character choice. 

Todd:  I I 

Craig:  I, you know, I I guess that I’ve heard of this. I’ve heard of guys that pull their pants down to pee. I’ve heard of guys that sit down to pee. I’ve just never actually witnessed it in my life. And so to see this guy just, like, roll his pants all the way down out in the open, you know, when the cheerleaders are just over in the grove smoking their Yeah. I’m not that confident, but good on you, I guess. You know, if you if you look like a model, you know, why not? Go for it. 

Todd:  What would it be like to be an actor in this movie? You know, you got Victor Salva directing you. I’m like, okay. Yeah. I hate out. Just pull it all the way down. All the way down. The Yeah. Those your character would definitely do that. 

Craig:  Those kids these these kids are so young. They probably they probably didn’t even know. Oh, god. Let’s that’s that’s too creepy. 

Todd:  That’s about it. Yeah. 

Craig:  There there there there’s no more there there’s not much there’s not much more of that moving forward. I mean, there there are some instances where the guy’s clothes get torn off unnecessarily later on in the movie, but, you know, whatever. It is what it is. 

Todd:  Then some more gratuitous things come up later, of course. Gratuitous in a different sense. I mean, the the bus is stranded. I think it it gets another flat tire. Right? 

Craig:  Yeah. And and we get the the, like, we see the shadow of the creeper, you know, like, flying around above them and stuff, but eventually they decide we’ll just go on on this one flat tire. But then, yeah, they get another flat tire, then they’re stuck. 

Todd:  And conveniently, they’re out in the middle of nowhere, and there’s no cell signal, which again is very 2003. I don’t even think you can go out into any cornfield in America anymore without a cell signal. Right. And then we get another shot of the father and son welding and forging, welding and forging. I think they’re putting together their materials. They’re gonna go out. They soup up a truck basically to go out and and take care of the creeper. And then we, you know, we don’t have to worry about them for a while.   Somewhere between the bus getting its first flat tire and getting its second flat tire, one of the girls on the car has a dream. 

Craig:  Yeah. Minxy. What a great name. Minxy. 

Todd:  This was a total eye roll moment for me. Talk about convenience. So she has this dream on this bus as they’re driving by and her dream has a cameo of Justin Long in it from the first movie, telling them to turn back, turn back, turn back. She kind of sees a little bit of the impression of what happened in the first movie, and then boom, you know, the tire blows out again on the bus and then wakes her up, and that’s the second time. But, conveniently, because she’s had this dream later on, she’s able to explain absolutely everything to the rest of the group, like down to the 23 days thing. 

Craig:  Yeah. It’s ridiculous. 

Clip:  It can smell something in people, in their fear, something that helps it pick people out. Pick people out for what? I don’t understand how you would know that, sweetie. But Todd boy told me. I think he was trying to warn me. He was trying to warn all of us that this thing has been around for 1000 of years and that nothing has been able to kill it. The boy was trying to warn us that by warning, it has to go back into the Earth.   Oh, come on.   Into the ground for 23 more years. 

Todd:  She got the whole thing in in a vision that we didn’t even see, but it’s like it was that came to her. 

Craig:  You know, it’s funny in talking about it analytically, it’s it’s so terrible. I mean, it’s it’s such a lame horror convention that, like and and one of the her boy no. It’s not her boyfriend. It’s, Scott, the asshole. At one point says, this morning you were shaking your pom poms at people and now you’re a psychic. And seriously, I mean, that’s what it is. Like just out of nowhere, all of a sudden this girl has these visions and premonitions that, you know, she can tell them, She can give them the complete exposition, the whole story. 

Clip:  And it doesn’t matter if we’re hiding on this bus or if we’re hiding under our beds. It’ll find us, the ones that it picked out. 

Todd:  And that’s one of the flaws really of of this whole premise is that you have to know the whole story. Right. Because as it turns out, they’re all gonna get attacked on this bus, of course. The first thing that happens is the coach is pulled away, and a teacher is pulled away through the door. And this is a little comical at times. Like like the coach gets yanked away kind of in the background where we can see it, but but not everybody else notices it at first. It’s another one of these creepers swooping down and and pulling them up and and away. 

Craig:  Mhmm. 

Todd:  But then the coach, the teacher gets real just gets pulled out the door through kind of a scene where they’re all trying to pull pull back in, pull them back in and whatnot. But unless you know the backstory, these kids wouldn’t know how they needed to react and and act. It wouldn’t have had the tension. They had to know that all they had to do was survive the night because this is the 23rd day, and he was gonna go back to sleep the next day. So that later becomes some of the tension between them as they’re arguing what to do. They’re the people who just wanna stay and bunker down in the bus, and they’re those who kinda want to run. And this knowledge that they’re given by this, you know, the psychic moment by this girl obviously plays into that argument quite neatly. 

Craig:  Yeah. And and you you say, you know, it it’s kind of cheesy and stupid, and it is, but it is in the way that monster movies are. I mean, you know, it’s a monster movie. It’s not realistic. 

Todd:  I just think it’s clunky. It’s just clunky, you know. I’m not saying the whole premise is stupid. I mean, you the premise can be whatever it is, but the way that the characters figure out where they stand, it’s just not handled very definitely. 

Craig:  That is oh, gosh. Yeah. That’s absolutely true. I I just I remember the first time I saw and I I was a fan of the first movie and I remember the first time that I saw this movie. I liked it. You know, I thought it was a good sequel and I, and I still like it, But, like, I know what you’re talking about. The first couple, it’s 2 of the adults, the bus driver and the coach. They get the adults out of the way right away, which I actually think is smart, you know? We should be focused on the young people.   The first two of them, when, you know, they’re laying out flares on the Todd, and and the bus driver is like, oh, you know, something’s going on. We’ve gotta get these kids back in the bus. You know, like, they’re not entirely stupid. Yeah. But they do. You know, like, it’s kind of we see them out of focus. Like, we’re focused on other people in the frame and they’re just in the background and they just get snatched out of the air and and taken away. 

Todd:  It’s cool. 

Craig:  Yeah. It is kinda cool. And one of the things that I appreciate about this movie as a sequel is that it’s established in the first movie that this creeper has this ability. He could do this. We don’t see that much of it in the first movie. We don’t see much much I mean, we do see him flying around. He flies away at the end with Derry, but we don’t see a lot of it in the first movie. And here, it’s just like, okay, you already know.   You already know what he’s capable of, so we’re just gonna go for it. And I and I actually kinda like that. And and it’s they’re jump scares, I guess. But I I thought it was kinda fun. But I do know what you mean. The last adult is standing in the doorway of the bus when he gets grabbed. And he gets grabbed by kind of these hairy feet, and they’re they’re like trying to pull them in. And it’s a little bee, you know, it’s a little bee movie monster movie with these hairy feet hanging onto him or whatever, but 

Todd:  It’s fun. Exactly. 

Craig:  Like, I don’t I don’t wanna be too critical of it because it’s fun. It’s not it’s not a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s it’s fun to watch. 

Todd:  Well, it really just becomes this demon more or less playing with them. Yeah. He could literally go in there, rip the top off of this bus like a sardine can and just start yanking them out and tearing them up. But he seems to get some pleasure, in taking his time with it and playing with them. And we got a little bit of that the first movie, but we really get it like overboard in this movie, I think. Yeah. Like, Immediately after the teachers are, you know, all the adults are out of the way, Scotty decides he wants to get off the bus and there’s kind of a dumb fight between him and Izzy the scar guy. And I think some of the racism, you know, kind of comes up and comes into play. 

Craig:  And The homophobia. Right? Because Yeah. Izzy, apparently, his nickname is Izzy or isn’t he because they think he might be gay. Right. And Scotty goes on this whole homophobic rant, which is super annoying. And Scotty. 

Todd:  The thing hasn’t been back here in almost 

Clip:  an hour. And that doesn’t mean that it’s not still up there somewhere. And that doesn’t mean that it is. Hey, this isn’t about who can run the fastest. Okay? Or being a pussy. What is your problem? You tell me, Izzy or Izzy? Hey, check yourselves, both of you. Do I make you nervous? Thinking you’re gonna come on to me and every other swinging dick on this bus makes me nervous. 

Todd:  Alright. We already know Scottie’s a dick. Like, you gotta get these Todd different reasons why we need to know that he’s a dick. But then the demon’s face appears in the window and is looking in, and, this is kind of comical in a way. It’s pretty terrifying, but then it it stays, you know, and it’s not like your normal horror movie where the demon’s face appears, and then it’s gone, and maybe some people see and some people don’t. Nope. You all get a very good look at it, and he’s looking in and surveying the scene, and he crawls kind of up the side of the bus in a weird way, and everybody’s staring at him. And he’s on the roof, and they’re just trying to figure out what to do.   And then, he comes around the front and, hangs down upside down in the windshield. And this scene was, like, so weird. 

Craig:  It is weird, but I really like it. And it’s funny because, Salva wanted to cut this scene because he thought that it was too something. Goofy. He’s a little goofy. Well, that’s what he thought too, but he ended up leaving it in, and it ended up being one of the scenes that the audience responded the most Todd. And I like it too. It is kind of goofy, but it’s also kinda creepy. 

Todd:  Well and again, you wanna read into you know, it’s more of this here’s the demon kind of leering in at all of these guys, and he’s licking his lips, and, they’re all lined up in the center of the bus, down, the aisle sort of. It’s just kinda how they found themselves, and he smiles at them and kind of the way you’ve Todd at somebody and tell them to move aside. Uh-huh. He just does that. And so then the first kid kinda moves aside and sits down, then he looks over the next kid. He tells him to move aside and sit Todd, and it goes all the way back until it reaches the last kid. And then he kinda looks and nods and then disappears. 

Craig:  And he’s sniffing. Like, that’s the part that is is so creepy to me. Like, he’s, like, obviously, like, we’re, you know, he’s, like, he’s trying to smell them. And then of course exposition girl tells us later that he he, he can smell something in your fear that makes him want you. And so, what they figure out, how they would figure this out, I have no idea, except thank Todd, for exposition, girl. 

Todd:  She has like another dream, does it? She’s like, she collapses and has yet another dream here before she wakes up and tells them more. It’s right. 

Craig:  And it’s really funny, but that that second dream sequence is actually really cool. Like, I mean, as far as writing goes, it may not be the most clever way of doing things. But the way that the scene was shot was actually really neat, like, she ends up back on the Taggart farm, Jack Taggart, this the farm that we started out on. She’s standing there, and everything is running in reverse. Like, you see little Billy who is the one that got taken off, you see him kind of go across the screen in the background running in reverse, and the dog running in reverse behind. And then, it we see Derry, Justin Long from the first movie standing there, you know, just a little ways away from her, and he’s talking really fast and it’s backwards. It’s like it’s somebody has hit rewind and it’s going back really fast, but then it stops and he starts talking forward at normal speed. Again, he gives her all every little bit of information she would 

Todd:  possibly need to know. So that so that she could wake up and pass it on to everybody else. 

Craig:  Yeah. Again, it was explored in the first movie. In the first movie, the creeper, it finds their car and he sniffs Derry’s underwear. 

Todd:  Oh, man. God. 

Craig:  They did some dark stuff today. But anyway, so it was established early on, you know, he he picks people out, that he wants. And and then for probably the next 20 minutes or so, it kind of just becomes them trapped in the bus and the creeper terrorizing them for a while. And it’s scary. At some point, like, it rips open the top and pulls a kid out, but then one of the girls is able to take a javelin and, like, stab it through the head. 

Todd:  Yeah. I’m I’m not sure where the javelin came from on this bus full of football. 

Craig:  It was under the seat. 

Todd:  I know. Again, what of like, were they also the, I don’t know. What did did they do javelin in high school? Is this a thing? I don’t know. Sure. Do they do they bring Sure they do. Do they bring all of the athletic equipment with them on the bus? 

Craig:  It it rips open part of the Todd, so there’s this big hole in the bus, and it it grabs a kid. I don’t even remember if it kills the first kid. I don’t know. 1 of the girls stabs it through the head. And it’s a really good effects scene where the creeper is, like, trying to pull the javelin out of its head and he keeps, like, pushing it back and forth. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And it it looks cool. Like, it’s a good effects scene. And then he rips part of the top of his head off. Yeah. And and one of them sees that. And then it, like, it flies I guess straight up and then comes crashing right back down on the bus and all the windows of the bus shatter out. And it’s crashed down so hard that it split one of the seams in the top of the bus. So it’s kinda poking through just a little bit.   And one of the girls peeks up through the hole that it had made and said it looks like it’s dead, but of course, it’s not dead. Eventually, one of the, wings falls through that seam that it’s created. 

Todd:  And, also, apparently, all the doors are jammed too, so they can’t get out the back door. And so they have to go to the front past this wing that’s fallen down. Well, I thought this was a cool scene. It’s something unique, you know, that you don’t Yeah. I think a lot of things actually in this movie are pretty unique for what could be just a run of the mill people getting picked off 1 at a time. At least they’re having some fun with it. And there have to go under this wing, so they have to literally lift this wing up, you know, crawl under it 1 by 1. And, the last kid, I don’t even remember who he was, doesn’t make it.   The wing wraps around him and pulls off his head. Right? And his shirt. And his shirt. Good point. 

Craig:  So that when his body comes back into the the bus, it’s headless and flailing around like a chicken with the tag cut off, but Also got nice pecs. 

Todd:  Nice abs and pecs. Yeah. We’d be laughing just as hard if this were women, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. We would. We would it’s gratuitous either way. Right. 

Craig:  Right. Right. 

Todd:  And then on the roof, he tears off his own head and and replaces it. That what great FX, by the way. I thought Yeah. 

Craig:  Really good. 

Todd:  And, you know, that’s a you always have these these villains who can regenerate, right, or who can’t be killed and, oh, Jason gets stabbed and then, you know, pulls out the knife or whatnot. And sometimes they play with it by making huge wounds that, you know, somehow get healed or, you know, it’s not really clear. What I like about this movie, and it was in the first movie too, is that somebody has really taken time to anatomically figure out how this guy is going to regenerate himself each time. Mhmm. You know? And so it’s it’s almost like this head comes from within and and comes back up into place. It’s it’s really cool, but it’s from absorbing the other kid’s head. And so he uses these kids’ energy in their own bodies to regenerate himself and keep him going. That’s neat.   It’s a really cool effect. And it It is. It’s practical. It’s a practical effect. 

Craig:  Right. And it looks good. At this point, Scott gets the front door well, after he gets his new head, he flies away. The creeper flies away. And butthole Scott gets the door open, and then he goes off on this whole spiel about how there are 2 classes of people on this bus. We saw that it picked out certain people. And now I remember even from the first time that I watched this movie, you know, he goes off on this rant about how we saw who it picked out. Yes, Scott, you stupid dick.   We saw that it clearly picked you too. Like, that was one of the most obvious ones, but he wants to kick off the black kids. Yes. 

Todd:  Okay. Where did that logic come from? We’re not quite sure. 

Craig:  I don’t know. But somehow, you know, it’s a very dramatic scene and, like, his girlfriend stands up against him and they decide most of them decide that they’re gonna get off the bus and they’re gonna try to run for it. 

Todd:  It doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. There’s nowhere to drive to. 

Craig:  They try to justify it. Like, supposedly, they’re right next to this little dirt Todd, and they’re like, that has to lead to a farm. Like, okay. Because I guess all dirt roads lead to a 

Todd:  farm. Farm. We live we’ve lived around many dirt roads and, you know, yeah, I guess eventually. It’s sort of 

Craig:  like falling like a river. 

Todd:  It will eventually Right. 

Craig:  You’ll be running for miles and miles and miles. Right? I can’t think what his name is. Double d is his nickname. Deac. One of the 

Todd:  Deac, Buckey, or Jake? 1 of the 3. 

Craig:  He’s yeah. I don’t know. He’s he’s the one that has the most tension with Scott. They they kinda get in a fight. And at this point, you know, this this guy, double d or whatever, this black guy is finally standing up to this dick, Scott. And I I liked it. I’m like, goodness. Finally, somebody put this asshole in his place.   But pretty much everybody gets off the bus. I feel like like one kid stays on and and closes the door after they all left. But then, you know, they’re stand they’re just standing outside the bus and basically arguing outside the bus. And then they we get this awesome shot of the creeper, like, silhouetted in front of the moon, and they’re like, 

Todd:  ah. Kids back on. Kids back on. You’re right. And they try 

Craig:  to run back into the bus, but the kid on the bus won’t let him back in. I don’t blame him. Yeah. 

Todd:  I would have left them out there too. Yeah. Dumbasses. 

Craig:  So they so they take off running, and one of them gets taken out with another one of the creepers, ninja Todd. And 

Todd:  Scotty gets pinned to a tree. Right? 

Craig:  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. 

Todd:  Is it with the stars? 

Craig:  No. It’s with a knife. The the creeper goes after double d, first, but he trips right at the perfect moment and the creeper doesn’t get him. But then, yeah, the creeper throws a knife and Scott goes through his arm and he gets pinned into a tree. 

Todd:  And then taken away. 

Craig:  Yeah. And ironically, this is writing at its finest. It’s Izzy, the one that he’s been a dick to about maybe being gay, his girlfriend who he’s gotten in a fight with, and Double D, the one who he has been a total dick to because he’s a racist. They are the 3 that Todd to try to help him. And double d pulls the knife out and and frees him, but, yeah, then then Scott gets taken away. He’s dead. 

Todd:  And we’re all totally fine with that at this point. Yeah. Like Totally. That’s one of the bad things about the writing in this film and and making a character so unlikable is that if he’s gonna go out so early on and I it’s not early on in the movie. Actually, the movie’s almost over. It’s late. Yeah. But but I imagined he would be part of kind of a final showdown.   Like, he would be the guy standing in the way of, you know, for whatever reason by his dickishness putting the the who who remained left in jeopardy. Yeah. It’s okay. 

Craig:  I was glad to see him go. 

Todd:  Oh, yeah. We all we all 

Craig:  We all Bluff Alicia. 

Todd:  Well, Minx Minx finds a far the farmer. Right? This is when the farmer comes back in Yeah. Conveniently. And now it’s the kids and the farmer versus the demon, and the farmer has a much better tools at his disposal. 

Craig:  Yeah. He’s made a homemade harpoon out of a, like, a, like, a post driver. Yeah. It’s awesome. 

Todd:  It’s really cool, and it’s like he’s fishing. It’s what’s cool about it. It’s like he’s spearfishing through the sky, almost like a video game. You know, swiveling it on from the top of the of the truck, and he shoots at the demon and 

Craig:  It it is like a video game, and a video game that this guy is really freaking good at because every time he shoots this harpoon at him, he nails him, which is awesome. And the first time that he nails him, you know, the creeper flies off, but it’s like he’s a fish on the line. And, like, so he’s trying to get away. And, the truck is, like, getting pulled up, you know, from him trying to pull away. And somehow, I think I was riding, and I missed it. But somehow, he gets off the first line, and then Jack shoots him again through the windows of the bus so that this steel line is, like, through the window of the bus, and, it flips the bus over and, like, rips through the the ceiling of the bus. And, yes, then the creeper pulls out this harpoon, pulls it out of himself, and throws it into the truck. And you think for a second that he has killed Jack’s other son Mhmm.   Which would have been pretty devastating. Yeah. But as as it turns out, no. He’s just narrowly missed, like, Jack junior ducked, like, right at the right moment. And and he’s a little bit injured, but he’s okay. And and then we we cut back to the other kids who are are still in the field, and, Izzy, Izzy or isn’t he, has found has found a truck, that they saw earlier in the movie. You know, it’s it’s kind of clunky as far as writing goes, but and they they get it. It’s it’s fun.   Yeah. I’m glad they found this truck because it’s a good it’s a fun scene. They find this truck and it’s Izzy, Scott’s girlfriend, and double d. 

Todd:  Yeah. 

Craig:  And they’re gonna get in this truck, but then all of a sudden again, you see the shadow of the creepers circling around them. Izzy and the girl jump in the truck, but double d tries to get in the passenger side, but the passenger door doesn’t work. So he has to jump in the back, in the bed of the pickup truck. Yeah. And and so Izzy, you know, is speeding down this road, but the creeper is chasing them in the air, and poor double d in the back is just like screaming, like, go faster, go faster. And I just thought this was an awesome scene. Like, it was it was really tense and and really 

Todd:  scary. 

Craig:  Out, and she goes tumbling off into the field. And then he I don’t remember if he hits something or if he just slams on the brakes. But what happens is when he either hits something or slams on the brakes, the creeper goes flying through the cab of the truck. And then the truck totally flips over. And we see Izzy comes, you know, we see the destruction of the truck and it’s, you know, smoking upside down. Izzy comes crawling out of it so we know he’s okay. And then it cuts to double d and he his leg is broken. He he’s alive, but his leg is broken.   And he kinda starts to crawl, and he doesn’t get very far at all before he stumbles upon the wing of the creeper. But it’s the the chopped off, like, the creeper has lost his wing, and it’s just kinda it’s kinda like flopping there. 

Todd:  But Yeah. Then we get this hilarious seed where the the creeper the one winged creeper is trying to get trying to fly up off the ground. And I like 

Craig:  It is hilarious, but I still thought it was kinda scary. 

Todd:  Oh, I thought it was just totally hilarious. There’s so much humor peppered throughout this movie because it is so absurd, you know, that I like the fact that he keeps things funny and has these moments. And to me anyway, this seemed really funny where the he’s he’s he’s like, fly fly fly fly fly falls down. 

Craig:  Yeah. He’s like bounding towards it. Yeah. 

Todd:  Of a hopping, bounding thing with his one wing. 

Craig:  Uh-huh. And he and he eventually gets to him, and he’s, like, he he’s on top of it. The creeper is on top of double b. And the you know, this this kid, he’s a strong kid. He’s he’s holding them off, but just at the last minute, when you and there’s a cool effect where the creeper’s head, like, the back part of it kinda opens up like like a reptile, like one of those reptiles that, like, expands its face to scare off enemies or whatever. Mhmm. I was thinking 

Todd:  of the spitters from Jurassic Park. 

Craig:  Yep. Exactly. Exactly like that. And, at the very last second, somehow, Jack and the remaining kids who he’s rounded up were able to completely flip his truck back over. 

Todd:  We didn’t see that part. 

Craig:  And it’s fine. And he harpoons the creeper right through the head. And is And it it it flops over on its back. 

Todd:  Isn’t the knife that he had at the at the end of that harpoon? Yep. Yeah. Like, he’s good thing he saved that last harpoon, the one with the knife on it for what, you know, for that last shot. 

Craig:  And, so Jack comes the creeper’s on its back. It’s like it it kinda starts to try to pull out the the harpoon, but it’s like it can’t get it out. And it’s laying there like it’s in pain, and Jack senior takes another big harpoon staff and it just stabs it. Like, I think I read somewhere online that he stabs it like 35 times or something like that. Yeah. I mean, it it it’s intense. Like, he’s he’s going at it. And then it looks, we get a close-up of the creeper’s face, and it looks like he dies.   Like, it looks like we see his dying moment, but then his eyes pop back open, and he’s just looking at Jack, like, angrily or whatever. And then those the way that his head had kinda popped open before, though, that that same I don’t know how to describe it, but that same thing kind of comes around like a cocoon and, covers his face. And Minxie who’s been really helpful throughout the whole movie, exposition girl says, It’s not dead. It’ll be back in 23 years. And Jack’s like, well, it looks dead 

Todd:  to me. 

Craig:  And that’s the end of the movie proper, but then we get a little end cap. 

Todd:  That’s right. This was this was interesting. So then we get now some more kids flying down this the same road, I guess, in a truck, in a car, and, they pull into this place. And, like, oh, is this the place? Yeah. This is the place. And, they get out and they pay what turns out to be Jack’s son, his older son, some money, and they’ve got this sign in the back that’s like, see the thing, you know, for 

Craig:  Bat out of hell. Yeah. See the bat out of hell. 

Todd:  They walk in, and they’re in the barn. They’ve turned their barn, I guess, into this, like, attraction, and the creeper, the bat out of hell, is pinned up way up high in the rafters. It looks kind of mummified in a way, just like a big dusty decrepit thing. It’s been up there for 23 years, and sitting in a lawn chair right across from it, staring straight up at it with the gun in his hand is Jack. Like, he’s just waiting for it to come back to life again. 

Clip:  Todd it right through the heart with a big homemade harpoon.   When?   About 23 years ago. 

Craig:  You waiting for something? 

Clip:  About 3 more days. 

Craig:  And and that’s it. And that’s it. You know, and and it’s silly, and it’s funny. I’ve had a really good time laughing about this movie today. But the truth the truth of the matter is it’s not a bad movie. No. And I I and I don’t think that this is a bad franchise. You know? Like, both movies, I think, are well made, you know, as far as, you know, the acting is pretty good.   You know, some of the characters when I sat down to watch this movie and I saw that it was an hour and 45 minutes, I was like, Really? Like, shouldn’t this be an hour? Because what I, the way that I always think about this movie is teenagers trapped in a bus. Mhmm. And I was like, how can you you know, how long can you sustain that? But it it doesn’t feel slow, really. No. To me, it it moves pretty quickly, and I like it’s entertaining. It’s not the best movie you’ve ever seen. It’s not my favorite horror franchise, but I I like it. And, I I think that, they’re they’re relatively well made.   You know, the a third one is supposedly coming out. What I’ve read is that they’re planning to, like, surprise drop it in October sometime. It’s done. The movie’s made. 

Todd:  I read they’re gonna put it out for a single day in the theaters. And then and then, I guess, like, streaming or something. I don’t know. Probably. 

Craig:  I wanna see it. I I’m looking forward to it. Now, originally, what the well, okay. So originally, part 2 was supposed to be about Derry’s sister and the psychic from the first movie trying to hunt down the creeper and find Derry, and the kids on the school bus was supposed to be a subplot. And then for whatever reason, Victor Salva got more into the subplot, and he’s like, you know, let’s just let’s just focus on that. So that’s what they did. The original idea for part 3 was it was supposed to be 23 years later, and the the sister from the first movie was supposed to have her own teenage son named Derry after her brother, and it was about her protecting her kid from the creeper. Well, now they’ve changed it apparently Todd, a movie that takes place between part 1 and part 2, and they’re saving the whole dairy sister saves her younger kid for part 4.   So they are, I guess there are plans for this series to move forward, and I’m all for it, you know? And we’ve laughed and laughed, and I don’t wanna seem disrespectful to anybody who has been a victim of abuse. That’s not my intention at all. 

Todd:  For sure. 

Craig:  For sure. So so I understand why people have qualms, about this guy. I get it. But looking at his work, his art, that’s what I’m talking about. And and and I like these movies. And and so I I I look forward to the next one, and and if if it’s good, which I have a feeling based on the first two that it could very well be, and they keep moving forward with it, then then I’m all for it. 

Todd:  You know, it’s pretty interesting that you’d have a 14 year gap between the second and the third in the series. That’s pretty bold, you know, to come back 14 years later, and I’ll be interested to see if they have some new ideas with it because Yeah. But, you know, horror movies have franchises have gone on on much less. You know? Sure. It’s it’s it’s kind of like in a way Friday 13th. It’s better in many so many ways than the Friday 13th franchise. 

Craig:  More creative. Sure. 

Todd:  Yeah. And it’s a more interesting villain. He’s got more to him. He has a kind of a personality. You can’t really define it. And it and that might be something neat, you know, that they can explore in later ones is maybe putting a little more of a giving us a little more of a handle on this guy’s personality. I don’t know if this guy is ever going to be I’m I imagine there are hopes that he’ll kind of take his place in the pantheon of of of horror icons, you know, Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers kind of thing. I don’t know.   I don’t I don’t know if I really see it happening with this one, but maybe maybe it will. Maybe after the 3rd and 4th movies. Thank you again for listening to another episode and a special shout out to Adam and Megan for recommending this movie. Thank you so much. If you have any other films you’d like to recommend, check us out on Facebook and send us a message that way. Also, please be sure to share this podcast with your friends. You can find us on Google Play, on iTunes, Stitcher, anywhere else your favorite podcasts are listed. Until next week.   I’m Todd. And I’m Craig with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.