Starting with believable dialogue and likeably annoying performances from the two leads, Jeepers veers headlong into a succession of heart-pounding sequences, each different in tone and execution from the last until, after one sudden, bizarre moment (a moment that loses some viewers while sucking others, like me, right in), you're in a very different, very strange, and very frightening place. In between there are references to Duel, Texas Chain Saw, Nightbreed, and many others--none of which, however, feel at all derivative, peppered as they are with moments that are startling and original (the design of a truck, a slow-motion free-fall, an unexpected turn for the weird, the repeated and total violation of presumed saftey zones). Lead actor Long is required to do little else but look wide-eyed and slack-jawed, but Phillips, who looks like a younger, lovelier version of Laura San Giacomo, gives a performance of surprising nuance, seguing from sisterly irritation to fish-out-of-water fear to unexpectedly fierce protective love. It culminates with an ending that I didn't see coming at all--no mean feat for a horror film.

Yeah, there are a lot of approaches to horror. These two movies find their own. And they happen to be horrifying as hell.