In Tranzit + Jeepers Creepers 1 + 2

Objective Rating (How much merit I think it deserves):
5/10
Subjective Rating (How much I personally like it):
5/10

WWII movie, quite a few recognizable faces, foreign accents, love, oppression, defiance, suicide. Shouldn't this make a great film? Apparently not. In fact, it's hard to even find a decent-sized poster for this movie online.

A group of about 50 German POW's are sent to a Russian camp where all the guards are female. Vera Farmiga (The Departed, Nothing But the Truth) plays Natalia, the female doctor at the camp while John Malkovich plays the sadistic superior officer, Pavlov. Thomas Kretschmann (you may know him from the Nazi officer who is kind to the titular pianist at the end of The Pianist) is Max, the prisoner who keeps his head down most of the time but is secretly sweet on Natalia.

For any of the female guards and staff members, falling in love with the prisoners is obviously a bad move. For a reason, too. This is where the movie is vastly unrealistic. There are some sentiments that cannot be that easily overcome, especially when the war was barely over. Having a ball (literally, a dance ball) with prisoners who may have killed your husband on the battlefield... think again, filmmakers.

As to the plot, well... Pavlov wants Natalia to gain the prisoners' confidence so they would tell her which ones of them are war criminals who lied about their identities upon capture. The rest is just moral dilemmas. Should you forgive your old enemies, are they even your enemies (because they surely aren't the same ones who shot at you during the war), should you treat them with kindness or despise because they are Germans who fought against you but also have wives and children at home, that kind of stuff.

So, if you are going to watch this movie, watch it for the people, not for the story, because the story is just ridiculous.

And now...


Objective Rating (How much merit I think it deserves):
3.5/10
Subjective Rating (How much I personally like it):
4/10

Fun, campy, over-the-top acting. I've always wanted to see Jeepers Creepers. Heard there's a third one coming out in 2011.

It did not disappoint. Maybe my expectations were low to start with (rightfully so). The Creeper is an ancient creature who wakes up every 23rd spring to feast on humans for 23 days. He has wings and really sharp teeth. He scares humans and selects among their body parts by smelling their fear (he only eats one part from each human), kind of like his way of selecting premium meat. He can regenerate damaged body parts by eating the corresponding part of a human. He is really fast, both on his rusted old truck and when he is flying/running. He has some sense of aesthetics, judging from his gruesome but fascinating wall art (he sewed bodies together in poses on the wall around his lair).

In the first movie, a brother and a sister driving home for spring break are preyed on. In the sequel, it is a high school football team traveling home on bus after winning the state championship.

It's always fun to marvel at how much the special effect department is growing. The first movie was made in 2001. Looks ancient. Everything (the blood, the bodies, the Creeper) looks so fake that you want to laugh at some points. The sequel, made in 2003, is only slightly better. But look at horror movies now. I'm so happy I'm alive at this time in history to witness the growth of horror movies.