Jeepers Creepers

[Andrew]

A demon pursues a young man and his sister.  What is truly frightening about this film is the convicted pedophile who wrote and directed such a story.  Two gents who I have not heard from in ages, their online nicknames are "Squishy" and "Chadzilla," first clued me in about the writer/director's past.

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[Mr. DS]

The male lead in this film deserves an award for being the perfect fodder. 

[akiratubo]

I really like Jeepers Creepers.  Maybe I'm naive, but those parts of the movie that could be taken as veiled pedophilia are presented as horrible, awful things and what is played up most is Darry's fear and suffering.  I don't get the feeling that Salva was making a movie for pedos to get off on.

(Jeepers Creepers 2, on the other hand, has so many shots of shirtless young boys peeing, playfighting, getting killed, etc. that I have to conclude he made it just to p**s off the people who said JC was a pedo movie.)

The Creeper was a genuinely scary monster (and he drove an old, suped up delivery truck!  How cool is that?).  I was diappointed when they made it immortal in the sequel.  In this movie, it is clearly mortal but the characters just can't do enough damage to it.

[Jack]

I thought the first half was pretty good, building a great deal of suspense and introducing fairly likable characters.  It sort of fizzled in the second half as the suspense aspect all but disappeared and that fat woman telling the legend of it was just plain stupid.

[Ash]

I liked the first Jeepers Creepers and had that song in my head for hours after I first saw it.
One thing I didn't like was the kid's name.
Throughout the entire movie, I thought he was named after the food group.
You know...Dairy.
It never occurred to me that it could be spelled Darry.   

[AnubisVonMojo]

The thing about Victor Salva is that, as a pedophile, there's a 90% chance he was also a victim when he was a kid. Clownhouse and Jeepers Creepers don't come off as "this guy's a pervert making porn for himself", so much as they seem more like this guy putting his own painful, terrible experiences to film. An alternative form of self-therapy funded by studio money. Obviously this doesn't excuse or condone the guy's f*cked up crimes, it's more a defense of the movies than the man.

Of course, if it turns out the guy had a completely normal childhood and was never victimized himself, then it's time to start boycotting...

[indianasmith]

I saw this movie when it first came out on video and it creeped me out, BIG TIME!!!!

The scene where they see the Creeper dumping bodies down the shaft by the old church is still one of the scariest scenes I have ever watched in any move, PERIOD.

[JPickettIII]

I watched this movie and I thought that for the most part it was good.  I did think that the guy; "Darry"; was a little bit of a puss.  But his sister made up for that.  The creature was scary.  Imagine something that is almost unstopable chasing you, an no one can help you.  That is pretty scary.

I did not know that the director was a pedophile when he made this movie, that does not change the fact that this was a decent movie.  I will admit that eventhough Micheal Jackson is a pedophile, I still like his music.  I just do not condone what he does in his persona life, the same goes with this movie.

If a person wanted to psychoanalyze this movie, it could be a pedophile's fantasy of a young boy that is in danger and there is no that could save him from the terrible person or beast.  But honestly, as I reflect back on the movie, I saw it as a new twist.  A male is the target of the horrible beast and the woman is the strong half.  If you were to look back at a lot of these types of movies, who is the one being chased?  The woman.  Who is the one being the hero, the man.  I thought it was a nice twist.

Now with Jeepers Creeper's II, I will say that this movie was a little more focused on the young male side.  There could be a lot of reasons for this.  But I think that is another topic in the forum. 

But I will say that the end of the first Jeepers Creeper's did not necessitate a second movie.  I think that they ruined it by making the monster immortal.  And at the end, I would have done something different, instead of waiting for the monster to come back to life so I could harpoon it, I would have buried in in a big slab of cement and buried the cement slab in a deep hole.

My two cents.

 

[HarlotBug3]

I don't give much air time to complaints of 'bad endings', but this movie was a rare inverse; the first quarter or so got me ready for a good, even great movie...then it let me down farther...and farther. Now that I know the filmaker's history, I suppose I can 'understand' the themes and scenes etc. It doesn't change the terribly abrupt change from suspence, to horror, to action, to laughable cheese.

Ultimately it's a B movie that hurts even worse for getting your hopes up.

Don't bother.

[Andrew]

This is the old forum post that I started the first time I watched "Jeepers Creepers."  I did not know the writer/director's story at that time.  For me, the movie itself almost made it, but then screwed up so badly that I felt it failed (overall).

http://www.badmovies.org/forum/index.php/topic,20569.0.html

[Keiper]

My college roommate was all about this film, so I finally saw it. Like others have said, it starts out really strong but then gets really weak, ruined by the cliche psychic woman and the creature for some reason going on a rampage at the police department (so much for his disguise...).

[Joe the Destroyer]

You know, I didn't mind this movie until the creeper started doing the kung fu nonsense over the car.  I was able to tolerate all the idiocy up until that point, and from there it all just seemed inexcusable. 

[Kooshmeister]

Sure, Salva was convicted but to the best of my knowledge he hasn't repeat-offended at all since then, and he's served his time, so are we to judge him for one horrible mistake he made and has already paid the price for? And anyway, why let whatever Salva did in the past ruin the film for you? Jeffrey Jones is a convicted sex offender himself, does this mean you automatically despise all of the  movies he's done before or since (Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Howard the Duck, Mom and Dad Save the World, Without a Clue, etc.)? Personally I don't give a flying flip about any of this. Not enough to make dismiss an entire film, anyway.

Although if you wanna do that, I'll play ball. Some of you have suggested that this movie is somehow Salva's fantasy, a sexual fantasy about a young boy being abducted and mistreated by a horrible monster. But what if it's the other way around? What if this is Salva's way of exorcizing his inner demons? He himself (or child molesters in general) is the Creeper, and he's condemning the acts the Creeper commits and using the film's downbeat ending to show the terrible trauma, trumped up of course, that real-life molestation leads to.

And, re: the movie's supposed "idiocy," one of the elements I actually liked was the involvement of the police. They're presented as skeptical, but not outright stupid. Particularly the two state troopers. Although they are hesitent to believe Trish and Darry's monster story, they can see something shook them both up pretty badly, and agree to go back with them to the church. And later, the cops at the police station do not actually get slaughtered Terminator-style by the Creeper like in so many other films (Darkness Falls, I'm looking at you!), and even shown up at the end to drive the Creeper off (even though he would've left anyway, having gotten what he came for). And also, if you listen to the radio in Jeepers Creepers 2, the cops do later find the Creeper's lair underneath the church, proving Trish's story to the world.

Basically, both this movie and its sequel are two of the few modern teen horror films where the adults, especially the authorities, behave sensibly for the most part and aren't presented as complete fools, and for that, at least, I give them both a gold star.

[Inyarear]

I thought that Salva's name looked familiar. You want creepy subtext? Try his film Powder; that whole film was like what Michael Jackson probably sees in his wet dreams. Heck, by the time it was finished, I was beginning to have some serious suspicions about the actors in addition to the director.

[Torgo]

8 year olds dude.