Although titled “Jeepers Creepers 3”, this film actually takes place in between the first and second films chronologically, making it a sequel to the original and a prequel to the sequel. I feel like movies like this should be subtitled rather than numbered. Some examples of subtitles that would fit this movie would be, “Jeepers Creepers: The Hand” or, “Jeepers Creepers: The Truck”. You’ll see what I’m talking about later on. For now, let’s just start with the plot: Umm… actually that might be more difficult than I thought. Perhaps it’s better if I just explain the events that took place in the film and let you decide what the movie was all about. Sound good?

The movie picks up immediately after the events of the first film, outside the police station where the Creeper just flew off with Darry (Justin Long). Although it would make sense to show Trish (Gina Philips) in this scene, instead she’s explained away by Sgt. Tubbs as being inside the station giving a statement. Remember Sgt. Tubbs? Me neither. I had to re-watch the first film to remember him. He was the cop that helped Trish and Darry. Anyway, the sheriff pulls up to the police station with a team of Creeper hunters, equipped with weapons and leather jackets that feature some kind of “Creeper hunter” logo. Not only does this mean that people were aware of what was killing people in the first movie, but that also there existed a team of people who hunt the damn thing. Everyone on the team has either lost someone to or had some contact with the Creeper. While the movie has no “main” character, Sgt. Tubbs and the sheriff are two characters the film focuses on extensively – that is, when we’re not shown scenes of the Creeper’s truck.

While the scenes themselves don’t actually fit in with the rest of the movie, I will say the only scenes that felt reminiscent of a horror movie were the ones involving the Creeper’s truck. This thing is booby-trapped from front to back, complete with motion-sensing spikes that clamp down inside the rear door, a spike that triggers when the passenger door is being opened, and an exhaust pipe that shoots a chained spike to capture anyone fleeing from the vehicle. We get an in-depth look into this four-wheeled nightmare via several scenes clumsily stuck in between half-developed subplots. In one scene, I’m pretty sure I saw the Creeper standing on top of the truck as it drove away, leading me to believe the truck itself is possessed in some way. I apologize if I’m making this film sound cooler than it actually is, because trust me, this is by no means a horror movie and is not worth anyone’s time. To bring you back to the reality of the nonsense this movie portrays, let’s talk about the hand.

Remember the story Darry told to Trish in the first Jeepers Creepers movie about the couple who didn’t make it to prom because they went missing? Darry even finds their preserved corpses in the basement of the church later on. Well, the mother of the boy in that story is the focus of another subplot in this movie. She sees visions of her dead son who tells her that the Creeper got his hand cut off 23 years ago and it became buried over time next to a tree on her farm. She eventually digs up said hand and grasps it, which in turn causes her eyes to roll in the back of her head and her body to float off the ground. She tells the sheriff and his team about the hand, which leads the sheriff to hold hands with it and do the whole “floaty-eyeroll” experience. She explains to the sheriff that he now knows how the Creeper came to be and what exactly the Creeper is. Here’s the kicker – neither the woman nor the sheriff explain to us, the audience, what they saw or any information about the Creeper’s origins, nor do they use that knowledge to do anything of value in the movie. Since that’s the case, why even have that ridiculous subplot in the film? Why tease us with this information if they’re not even going to use that knowledge against the Creeper? It’s been 14 years since Jeepers Creepers 2 came out. Enough teasing. We deserve a good sequel.

As the film draws to a close, we get an over-the-top action sequence of the Creeper falling in slow motion while being shot with a mini-gun by the sheriff, which honestly made me laugh out loud when I saw it. It looked like the Creeper was on an invisible zip line headed straight for the sheriff, and the unnecessary quietness of the scene only made it more awkward than it already was. Speaking of awkward, the final scene with the Creeper has him walking through the woods and coming upon a cardboard sign with the severed hand nailed to it, and, “We know what you are,” written on it. Seeing this, the Creeper crumbles the severed hand into dust and then falls to its knees and screams in disappointment, in a slow motion fall that reminded me of Ben Stiller at the end of Tropic Thunder. Then, that’s it. We don’t see the Creeper for the remainder of the film. I guess we’re too assume this sign depressed him so much that he gave up trying to kill the people he’s been chasing throughout the film. The movie has no resolution, nor does it try to explain any of the blaring questions we, the audience, obviously now have.

The very end of the movie finally reveals Trish (Gina Phillips) as the narrator, sitting in an office, surrounded by computer equipment and old articles about the Creeper. She’s obviously aged since the first film, so I guess we’re to assume this scene is taking place in the future (of the timeline we’re shown in the movie). She exclaims that she won’t stop until the Creeper is defeated, blah, blah, blah. Who cares? We wanted this movie to be about Trish hunting the creeper, and instead we get a short scene that has literally nothing to do with the events that were shown in this movie. The bus of high school kids from Jeepers Creepers 2 pulls up and one of the kids from this movie hops on, leading us to believe this movie ends right where Jeepers Creepers 2 begins, meaning all three movies take place over the same 2-day period. Don’t get me wrong; I like that they’re continuing the story, and I even like the timeline jumping, but this movie was utterly disappointing, cheap, and only caused confusion. Even the Creeper looked terrible. Supposedly, the script for Jeepers Creepers 4 has already been written, and is supposed to revolve around Trish hunting the Creeper, (what this movie should have been), but I’m not holding my breath.

This movie is…

Don’t waste your time.

Cheers and goodnight.