Jeepers Creepers 3

Beginning at the conclusion of the first film, outside of the police station where The Creeper has been attacked and lost, the apparently abandoned truck is towed away, intended to be impounded.  On route, The Creeper reappears and following a couple of deaths reacquires his truck, hiding it away in an open (!) field.  It is discovered by some arrogant teens but as with the cops they can find no way of boarding the vehicle, filled as it is with booby traps.  Meanwhile some cops and a team of vigilantes head out to track and finish the monster.  Elsewhere a grandmother whose son, Kenny, was once taken by the creature now has visions of her dead son and his warnings, whilst musing over revenge.  Kenny's niece attracts the attention of the monster and all are gradually brought together in a showdown to stop his insatiable lust over human body parts.

I feel there are several flaws with Jeepers Creepers 3 that did not afflict the previous outings.  The story meanders around confusingly over a severed hand that holds the key to information, and many characters that crisscross one another as they become mixed up in the monster's activities.  The previous entries took time to build up suspense, giving the characters something to become increasingly terrified about, whereas here the action starts from the first second.  Some may see this as advantageous, however, I don't feel that it works in the film's favour.  The other aspect that presents weakness is The Creeper himself.  Again, he is ably played by Jonathan Breck, however, the creature is fully visible in sunny daylight most of the time.  No attempt is made to conceal him as was the case in parts 1 and 2, thus - despite looking pretty cool - his impact is inevitably lessened.  The film is a reasonable time-passer maybe, on the other hand a bit of a let-down following two superior chapters.  The one nifty aspect of part 3 is that it winds up being a nice bridge between the first and second parts (with a cameo from one of the first film's characters at the conclusion).

Released in the UK on Blu-ray by 101 Films, the disc reminds me of a budget acquisition in the early days of DVD - there are no extras at all (not even a trailer) and the menu simply provides the viewer with a 'Play' option, no chapter selections, nothing!  Still, the film looks nice - 2.35:1 HD, it is very sharp and detailed disadvantaged only by a bitrate/lazy encode that can't always keep up, resulting in banding where colour gradations should be smooth.  The audio defaults to stereo but can be switched to 5.1, thankfully, for a competent track that exhibits some source mixing issues.  Overall the presentation is reasonable and the barebones disc can be picked up without too much financial outlay.