A brother and sister driving home for spring break encounter a flesh-eating creature in the isolated countryside that is on the last day of its ritualistic eating spree.
- IMBD
The first Jeepers Creepers is a Science Fiction Horror movie which, throughout gives a great sense of fear to the audience. It does this using all four technical area's of media to give an effective appearance of this horror.
The front cover to this film gives a very good impression of what the film is about/ what genre this fits into. The font used here works well with the image as it gives a supernatural feel to the film. The eye in the center is obviously not human and adds to the overall effectiveness of the cover in my opinion.
In the opening scene, you can tell the genre of the film, this is mostly from mise en scene as the setting is very open, typical and dangerous. The costumes are used in this film to make it feel more realistic. The costumes are common and casual looking. The editing works well here with the mise en scene because it gives the kind of 'dusty' look to the film, making it feel old. This effect works well because it gives it an intense 'thriller' feeling. The establishing shot in the opening scene shows this with the camera work holding on the open road filled with nothing but grass, the camera then pans round slowly, following the car. The car turns a corner into the center of the camera as the car gets closer to the camera, you can hear the conversation between the two main characters, Trish and Darry so this establishes to the viewer the relationship between the two main characters. They are brother and sister who seem to get along quite well. This goes on for the first four minutes forty seconds of the film.
As they carry on with the conversation, the camera angle is used really well here to give the viewer a sense of urgency. A two shot of the main characters sitting in the car shows a dark truck like figure approach from behind, getting closer and closer.
The sound here is quite significant as it builds slowly and works with the camera work to build up.
A few times there are some point of view shots to put the spectator in the two characters shoes. I find these very effective to be used in the opening because this entices the spectator and interests them to watch more.
Within this part of the opening, its a high climax point, fast paced editing is used with a lot of cuts put in to build it up.
Throughout the film, mise en scene continues to rise above all four technical area and becomes the key element to this film, in my opinion. I spoke earlier about the costumes being a key factor for mise en scene here, and as the film progresses on, the costumes used become more dirty, with rips, tears and blood on them. As well as costumes, the lighting changes throughout, but it is used productively. For example, the lighting in the establishing shot is quite bright to work with the 'open road' feel, but as the movie progresses, scene which are meant to be shown as more 'horrific' are poorly lit to add mystery. A great example is shown in one of the more weirder parts of the film:
Here shows the beginning, where the lighting is bright and matches every aspect of mise en scene and camerawork.
Here shows the darker scene where a mysterious figure is seen shoving bodies wrapped in white sheets, tied in rope and spotted with blood down a shoot. This, for me is one of the weirdest parts of the film, its chilling. And this is because the mise en scene has changed from the open road, with a bright day and two people talking, to a dark, tree covered church with a murderer hiding bodies. The mysterious figure's costume also adds to all of this. It is all black, not flesh showing and he wears a hat. There is one shot which for me is actually very chilling, where he stands and stares at the main characters, revealing his strange figure and adding to mise en scene in the scene:
The editing used in this chilling part is done well and blends with the mise en scene. Its not fast paced at all, its cuts are long and droned out to make this seem more realistic. This is also contrasted well with the previous 'creepy' incident with the truck. This is done by camerawork, sound, mise en scene and editing.
When the truck comes up behind them, the camerawork uses low angles for the truck and slightly shaking low angle for the main characters. Whereas in the shots above, the camera is tracking and this is done steadily. The sound in the first part is shouting, a loud horn and heavy car noises which is contrasted with silence and light chimes. The editing, as i explained above, is slow paced in the second part compared to the first.
I focused mainly on the beginning because in my opinion this is where the strongest points in this film are. Overall, the film builds the climax and keeps the spectator interested through a number of key elements which focus on the technical areas.
