Jeepers Creepers (2001) – Review

To separate the art from the artist is a debate that will rightfully rage on for as long as there is art created by those with less than desirable backgrounds. Some will flat out refuse to watch any film featuring someone who has got some heinous, probably criminal act in their past, but with others it’s often a deeply personal choice whether the actions of someone involved in the creation of a film will actually effect their love of a movie of their choice. Some will have no issue watching Mel Gibson movies despite his controversial brush with the law, others may draw the line at the antics of Roman Polanski, Harvey Weinstein or Woody Allen after the worrying results of their private lives went public, but surely one of the most divisive is that of director Victor Salva who created the indie horror hit, Jeepers Creepers.
While Salva’s past is undeniably reprehensible (I won’t offer details here but feel free to Google), the fact that he’d already served jail time for his crime still left me torn between watching a movie I enjoy and turning my back on one of the best genre flicks of the decade. From here on in, I will no longer be referring to Silva by name, but I also will be reviewing Jeepers Creepers based on its own merits in what might be the most careful review I’ve ever written in my life.

Siblings Trish and Darry Jenner taking a trip through the Florida countryside as they drive their car home from university for spring break and their demeanor is both warm and prickly as the relationship between brother and sister usually is. However, their trip suddenly takes a hard right into sinister territory when a rusted hulk of a near-antique truck appears out of nowhere and violently tailgates them as they speed down the highway. Eventually, the aggressive road hog passes them giving the siblings a parting glanse at a cryptic, personalised numberplate that reads “BEATNGU”, but once they’ve steadied their nerves and driven on after their experience, they spot their highway tormentor dumping suspiciously human-shaped bundles down a large pipe.
After narrowingly avoiding another attack from BEATNGU, the Jenner kids double back to see if they can offer assistance, they find that they are way beyond dealing with your standard, conventional, highway based psycho. To go with his rusted super truck and his tatty coat and hat, this maniac also boasts a lair that features his preserved previous victims all sewn together like some sort of gruesome tapestry with each body missing a vital piece of their anatomy and after making their macabre find, Darry and Gina flee to the local police in an attempt to make this madness end.
However, the kicker is that the man that’s been chasing them isn’t exactly a man at all and Gina and Darry have something that he desperately wants and will tear the entire county apart until he gets it. Before long, the terrified brother and sister will realise that that number plate has shocking and gruesomely literal meaning.

If it makes you feel any better (and it probably shouldn’t), I’d seen Jeepers Creepers before I’d heard about what the director had been responsible for, but by then I had already embraced the film as a much needed antidote to the increasing smug, self-aware slashers that were dominating the market. Starting from the point that we’re almost trapped inside a familiar sounding urban legend and then gradually letting it get more and more out of control, the film almost starts off as a clone of Spielberg’s Duel as our hapless leads are bothered by a roaring, rust bucket that will simply not leave them alone. However, as the story progresses, it then switches to a serial killer chase film that carries strong supernatural vibes until finally culminating in a full on creature feature that comes dangerously close to delivering a full fledged horror icon and the fact that the story itself is rapidly losing control of itself manages to heap in the dread in impressive ways.
The filmmakers leave no creepy trope unturned. A couple witnessing a crime; spooky phone calls from a psychic uttering warnings of a terrible future; a dead body that isn’t quite dead yet; monstrous threats occurring in the background of an oblivious character, it’s all there as the movie ratchets up the threat until we get to the infamous Creeper reveal and it here that we find that opinions deviate a little.

Some feel that the reveal is too outrageous and that the Creeper’s true identity is simply a massive jump the shark moment when it should have stayed a slightly more grounded, and generally typical psycho thriller. Simply put, after a chase that’s delivered more and more proof that this nutjob isn’t human, he’s seemingly put down for good, only to find that this motherfucker has wings and despite the fact that he has a truck, clothes and a personalised number plate, this “Creeper” is actually a stoney skinned, demonic gargoyle monster. Yes, some felt that this insane revelation pulled them right out of the movie, but I put it to you that it’s one of the greatest, prolonged creature reveals since the original Predator and beyond that, the amount of detail the script gives you concerning the Creeper’s many quirks feels like someone’s been studying Wes Craven’s How To Build A Horror Icon 101.
Played by Jonathan Breck who gives a brutal, sardonic attitude to everything the Creeper does, be it eating a tongue out of a severed head or casually back flipping off a car bonnet, the creature comes almost perfectly fully formed. The look, the car, a set of awesomely cinematic rules (every 23 years, for 23 days, he eats – and he replenishes any failing body parts by consuming them from his victims) it’s all here to create something unique and genuinely intimidating.
On the flip side of the horror coin, Jeepers Creepers also benefits from having Gina Phillips and Justin Long play impressively credible siblings and for some reason, having the two leads play a squabbling brother and sister ends up being far more interesting than having the standard boyfriend/girlfriend relationship these types of movies often employ. In fact it even manages to explain away a lot of the dopey stuff the two do that kicks everything off, because admit it, you always do stupid stuff when you’re with your sibling, right?

Add to all of this the creepy titular tune, a remarkably down-beat ending and an absolutely killer final shot, if Jeepers Creepers had been directed by someone who didn’t have a massively upsetting past, I genuinely believe that the movie would be held up as horror royalty to this very day and the Creeper may have become as recognised as Freddy Krueger or Michael Myers. However, despite an executive producing credit for Francis Ford Coppola and more innovation than you can flap a wing at, the whole separate the art from the artist thing is just too problematic to ever fully enjoy it ever again.
The film is great, everything else is just too creepy to bear.
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