The original Jeepers Creepers was an unnerving, atmospheric horror film that introduced a terrific antagonist. The fun (if not quite as frightful) Jeepers Creepers 2 offered loads of action and suspense as the Creeper–that ghoulish gargoyle decked out like The Undertaker–menaced a high school basketball team’s bus. For fans of these first two installments, though, the long-delayed Jeepers Creepers 3 will prove bitterly disappointing.

Jonathan Breck returns here to embody the carnivorous Creeper (whose looking a lot beefier from all that binge eating), but the character gets utterly upstaged by its own paraphernalia. More attention is given to its weapons (which spring to hand via campy telepathy) and its gadget-pimped, booby-trapped truck (imagine the Batmobile redesigned by Jigsaw). Even one of the creature’s severed hands from twenty-three years earlier gets a disproportionate share of screen time–in a hokey bit of mythology, holding said appendage allegedly furnishes insight into the origins and vulnerabilities of the Creeper. I write “allegedly,” because the film refuses to reveal any of this information, despite featuring two drawn-out scenes in which different characters endure the visionary experience. Such failure to deliver marks Jeepers Creepers 3 as a whole; there isn’t even a climactic confrontation, just the histrionic dismay of the monster after it discovers that some of its human nemeses have learned its secrets.

This is a film that has it all–if all we are talking about is hammy acting, B-grade CGI, and a nonsensical, go-nowhere plot. The less said about it, the better; I feel I have already wasted enough time just sitting down to watch it.

After suffering through this wretched resurfacing, I can only hope that the Jeepers Creepers franchise remains dormant for a lot longer than twenty-three years.