Jeepers Creepers (2001)

Dir: Victor Salva

I never saw this one at the time but, watching it now, it hasn't really aged that well. Justin Long and Gina Phillips play a brother and sister driving home from college along a barren highway. In true Duel style, they're pursued by a creepy old truck and a deadly cat and mouse game is thrown down. The cat, however, soon turns out to have some unexpected claws... There are some things to enjoy about this modern-day creature feature - a couple of really nasty gore scenes and high production values in particular - but it's just too thin a plot (monster-chases-kids...endlessly) to work for 90 minutes. It probably would've made a nice 45 minute Masters of Horror episode but, as it stands, there are some very odd, laboured attempts to stretch things out and it's hard to maintain a sense of threat for such a long time without getting to the implausible "they're still not dead!?" stage. *1/2