‘Jeepers,’ where’d you get that script?

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In theaters

JEEPERS CREEPERS, 90 minutes, R, written and directed by Victor Salva.

As cheesy horror movies go, Victor Salva’s “Jeepers Creepers” isn’t as bad as, say, 1972’s “Night of the Lepus,” which featured scores of mutant cottontail bunnies growing to the size of dinosaurs and eating their way through everything – including, in some cases, the film’s set.

It also isn’t as bad as 1963’s “The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies,” or 1967’s “Hillbillies in a Haunted House,” or even 1965’s “Monster-a-Go-Go,” which opens with a line that says it all for the experience of watching “Jeepers Creepers” – “What you’re about to see may not even be possible within the narrow limits of the human mind.”

Folks, what you’re about to see may not even be possible within the threadbare limits of a lobotomized mind.

As bad as it is, “Jeepers Creepers” is more in keeping with B-movie standards such as “Pumpkinhead,” “Children of the Corn” or “The Crimson Cult.” It’s a throwback to the drive-in slasher movies of yesteryear, an old-school horror flick that wants to be a cross between Tobe Hooper’s “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” Robin Hardy’s “The Wicker Man” and Steven Spielberg’s “Duel.” It’s too bad that after a fair start it fails to deliver a coherent script, a believable performance or a noteworthy boogeyman.

In the film, squabbling siblings Trish (Gina Phillips) and Darry (Justin Long) are on their way home from college for spring break. When a huge, evil-looking truck straight out of the PlayStation 2 game, “Twisted Metal: Black,” races up behind them and forces them off the road, Trish and Darry get a little jumpy – especially when they pass a deserted church moments later to find the truck parked in the front yard and a large man shoving what looks like corpses down a drainage pipe.

Curious to learn if what they saw was real, Trish and Darry, who obviously forgot their common sense at the dorm, find all sorts of interesting things down that pipe. Indeed, as the film’s stock black psychic, Jezelle Gay Hartman (Patricia Belcher), proclaims in one of the film’s more memorable scenes, what’s down that pipe is like “some psycho version of the Sistine Chapel!”

Later, the helpful Jezelle is hauled in to clear up the mucky plot: “That thing down there,” she states, “wakes up ever 23rd spring to eat people for 23 days!”

We never learn why, not that it matters. What matters here is that the film’s winged monster was enough to bring the actress Eileen Brennan out of retirement. Watching the former star of “Private Benjamin” stomp around in her dusty pink mules while hoisting a shotgun to fire off a few rounds into an exploding cornfield is one of the more unforgettable sights I’ve had at the movies all summer.

Grade: D

On video and DVD

THE TAILOR OF PANAMA, 109 minutes, R, directed by John Boorman, written by Boorman, John le Carre and Andrew Davies.

In “The Tailor of Panama,” John Boorman’s smart, sophisticated espionage thriller based on the best-selling novel by John le Carre, Boorman scores a master stroke of casting that lifts his film straight out of the canal – and right onto England’s rear.

For the role of Andy Osnard, the libidinous, sleazy secret agent stirring up trouble at the heart of le Carre’s heartless dark comedy, Boorman cast Pierce Brosnan, the current 007, and has a great time skewering all that 007 has come to mean as one of pop culture’s most iconic cinematic figures.

Working from a script he co-wrote with le Carre and Andrew Davies, Boorman’s dense, complex satire finds Osnard freshly banished to Panama after infuriating his superiors at the British Secret Service for being a bit too familiar with the women.

Now on the hustle to please the crown so he can get out of Panama and return home, the vicious, nasty Osnard turns to Harry Pendel (Geoffrey Rush), a British expatriate and much-sought-after tailor to powerful Panamanian officials whom Osnard believes can get him the inside information he needs.

Riddled with secrets of his own, Pendel, whose debts are being bankrolled by Osnard, finds himself in a pinch; if he refuses to help Osnard, not only will the truth about his sordid past be revealed, but his wife, Louisa (Jamie Lee Curtis), and their two children, might find themselves on the cutting room floor of his swanky shop.

The problem? Pendel has no real inside information on anyone. The solution? He’s such a shrewd little cockney con artist, he’s hardly above feeding Osnard a handful of lies about an alleged Panamanian revolution.

There are so many twists, turns and double-dealings stitched into the seams of “The Tailor of Panama,” saying more would ruin the experience of seeing the film. We’ll leave it at this: In spite of being too vague for its own good, the film ultimately comes through with a handful of surprises, a wicked sense of irony and a wit that smacks of some of this year’s best writing.

Grade: A-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays in Style, Thursdays in the scene, Tuesdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5” and Thursdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30” on WLBZ-2 and WCSH-6. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.

THE VIDEO CORNER

Renting a video? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores.

The Dish ? A-

Exit Wounds ? D

Memento ? A-

The Tailor of

Panama ? A-

Joe Dirt ? D+

See Spot Run ? F

Willy Wonka and the

Chocolate Factory ? A-

Hannibal ? C+

Say It Isn’t So ? D

15 Minutes ? D+

Blow Dry ? C+

Enemy at the

Gates ? C

An Everlasting

Piece ? B+

Get Over It ? B-

Josie and the

Pussycats ? F

Say It Isn’t So ? D+

Tomcats ? F

Chocolat ? A-

The Mexican ? C-

3000 Miles to

Graceland ? D

The Brothers ? B

Head Over

Heels ? D

The Trumpet

of the Swan ? C+

Pollock ? A-

Sweet November ? D-

Valentine ? F

The Gift ? B+

Family Man ? D-

Saving Silverman ? F

Down to Earth ? D

Monkeybone ? D

Thirteen Days ? A-

Unbreakable ? C+

The Wedding

Planner ? D+

You Can Count on Me ? A

Proof of Life ? C-

Save the Last

Dance ? C-

State and Main ? B

O Brother,

Where Art Thou ? A-

Cast Away ? A-

Crouching Tiger,

Hidden Dragon ? A+