Given that Jeepers Creepers 2 stars a high school basketball team, I suppose it’s not surprising that it has a large number of black cast members. The shirtless homoeroticism, on the other hand, goes unexplained. (Maybe the director’s prior arrest for child molestation has something to do with it.)
We have three black players — Deaundre “Double D” Davis (Garikayi Mutambirwa), Kimball “Big K” Ward (Kasan Butcher) and, er, “Other Team Member with No Nickname” — plus a black cheerleader, Chelsea (Lena Cardwell), and black Coach Hanna (Thom Gossom Jr.). And two of them survive! Unlike most horror movies, there’s overt racial discussion in Jeepers Creepers 2, as when white boy Scotty is bitter with the coach about his lack of playing time: “Maybe I got the wrong skin color to get equal play on this team.” Later, he calls Double D “bro,” to which D responds, “Why do I think you wanna call me something else? You wanna call me something else, Scotty?…I can see you thinking it whether you say it or not.”
The movie doesn’t really do anything with the racism (or homophobia) it chronicles early on — unless we’re supposed to see the kids put aside their differences and come together to fight the Creeper (which they really don’t), but it’s kind of refreshing to see a film like this acknowledge real-world issues. Although it’s largely an ensemble cast, Double D is more or less the lead character; at least, he’s the one who gets to go face-to-face (literally) with the Creeper at the end, which is a nice change of pace. Maybe Part 3 will take place in Compton.
