My Appreciation for The Creeper Part II

“It was like a human tapestry of pain and torture.”

Unfortunately for us Creeper fans the legacy of The Creeper only lasted for about 2 films, however there is another Jeepers Creepers film in the works but before we start guessing what the third movie would be about let us take a look about what was revealed to us in Jeepers Creepers 2. Jeepers Creepers 2 was sort of like Nightmare On Elm Street Part 2 because not only did it have more special effects but also it told us more about who The Creeper was and how unique of a character he is. In it’s sequel we aren’t left to our imagination as to what The Creeper looks like and how he works. We are given an in depth but rather dark look at how The Creeper really operates and how much of pedophile he is.

If we look at some of the most well known serial killers like Jason, Michael or Freddy they are all strong but none of them are naturally strong. Jason’s strength only goes so far, Michael may be strong but that’s only because he was ‘cursed,’ and Freddy can lift busses up because he can manipulate dreams. But The Creeper has the strength to flip over a pickup truck, lift up a bus almost off the ground and has the strength to carry his weight plus on other person. The difference here is that this is natural strength, however unnatural The Creeper may be. His strength goes further when he punches holes through metal and steel, which I haven’t seen done by any slasher. Most of the time they punch through dry wall and wood but never metal. We can than really assume that there isn’t any place to hide from The Creeper.

With extreme strength comes extreme speed and this is something that no other villain has. Think about it… most serial killers, like Michael or Jason, walk or sprint to their victims. The Creeper can run faster than a bus and can easily pounce on a victim before he or she knows what hits them. I would compare The Creeper to a Cheetah or a Lion because he stays quiet and still but when he sees his victim he beams towards them. Also, consider this: how fast do you have to fly to be out of somebody’s sight when they are looking at the sky? Pretty damn fast. This makes The Creeper literally a bat out of hell and very animalistic, a trait I haven’t seen in slasher villains.

In the first movie I assumed that The Creeper is very intelligent as shown through his whistling, his love for old music and his artistic abilities such as patching up dead bodies. This time around I can safely say that The Creeper is very artistic because he has a knack for handcrafting throwing blades and knives. Most slasher villains pick their weapons at random usually by going into a kitchen or finding something in a toolshed. Now, if we look at villains like Freddy Krueger or Jigsaw, they both handcrafted their weapons and contraptions of torture but what’s the big difference between those weapons and The Creeper’s weapons? Not only does The Creeper handcraft his weapons but he also makes these weapons out of human bone and skin. This is something that no serial killer, slasher or any villain had done outside of cannibals. As morbid at this may be, the weaponry is actually quite creative and very carefully made. The throwing star is patched up using skin, which takes a great deal attention and experience in sewing. However, the most interesting piece of weaponry he owns is a knife in which the handle is made of bone. Etched into the bone handle are carvings of helpless souls falling to the knees of The Creeper and a scene depicting a person running from The Creeper in a field. This sort of craft requires skill, precision and attention to detail… something that most serial killer would never take the time to do.

Personally, I think the biggest advancement that we got from the sequel is how The Creeper really looks. Much like any given slasher, the first film always shows the villain in shadow save for a few moments here and there but the second film always shows the gritty appearance of the villain. In Jeepers Creepers 2, not only do we see more of the psychical appearance but we also see how he regenerates himself. His body looks like a muscular, reptilian humanoid. He seems to have scales or some sort of bumps, his body is thick with muscle and his face looks like The Creature from the Black Lagoon. All this suggests that he is truly a living monster. He’s not some nut or psychopath but a real life monster. His wings are used more in this movie and from what we are told; they are thick like a shower curtain and filled with little red veins. He has an extra nostril on the bridge of his nose, his teeth are razor sharp, he has fins on the back of his head and his feet have giant talons growing out of them. No other slasher is like this because they are all human in some sense. The Creeper is neither human nor entity… just pure evil.

More importantly we get to see The Creeper regenerate his own head when he has to tear it off. Much like Freddy Krueger, The Creeper can manipulate his body into twisted skin and bone. In this film, The Creeper has to consume somebody’s head so that a new head can be fabricated in his chest. It’s a grotesque sequence of regeneration and it further proves that The Creeper isn’t just a master killer/hunter, but he’s also indestructible. He continues to play off the idea of growing what he eats. Unlike most serial killer villains, if you stab them or cut their arms off they have to continue on minus a limb whereas The Creeper can just grow back his arm after consuming one.

They also tap into the actions of The Creeper, which was especially freaky. Unlike other killers who just kill or pursue their victims for fun, The Creeper does it because it’s instinctual. Because he has to. Because he needs to. Here is a monster that not only has a keen sense of smell but also will hunt down its victim wherever they go. The Creeper will find them, kill them and eat them. Freddy would only hunt them down for a vendetta, much like most killers but The Creeper hunts his victims because he has to and that makes him especially dangerous and frightening.

Above all of this, the reason why The Creeper is such a landmark villain is because I think he his Victor Salva’s personal demon. See, Salva was a convicted child molester after he finished his film The Clownhouse and since than he hasn’t gotten any recognition. What he did was wrong but perhaps Jeepers Creepers was his way of trying to cast out his personal demons. Consider The Creepers actions: He mainly hunts down young men, he gets a sexual high off of smelling their scent, he engages in sexually explicit activities like lip-licking, when he sees a young man he breathes heavily, he strips his victims down and he essentially takes their soul away from them. Perhaps The Creeper is how Salva views himself and is trying to make things right. Salva is a sexual predator and The Creeper is a predator too… though physically they are different, mentality wise they are similar.

In summation, The Creeper isn’t just a monster that faded into obscurity but rather one of the greatest villains ever seen in horror history. I would consider him to be more frightening than Jigsaw or any of the other villains in the past 10 years. Even the Jeepers Creepers films themselves are extremely well made horror movies despite the amount of people who consider them tacky or corny. If that’s the case, Friday the 13^th is tacky as hell, Nightmare on Elm Street is pure cheese and Halloween… well that’s just boring. I never thought about Jeepers Creepers that much because I thought it was just an average movie and the second was just ‘meh.’ After watching it and observing the filmmaking styles, the characterization and direction I have come to realize that Jeepers Creepers may be one of the last original horror movies. As for The Creeper, he is ands will always be the greatest villains in the past 10 years. I wish him well in the third movie.

My Appreciation for The Creeper Part I

“Every 23^rd spring for 23 days it gets to… eat. You’ve got something it likes… one of you. It eats lungs so it can breath, it eats eyes so it can see. Whatever it eats… becomes a part of it. I don’t know if it’s a demon or a devil… or just some hungry thing from some dark place in time… but when you hear that song you run, and I mean run! ‘Cause that song means something terrible for you, something so terrible you couldn’t dream of it… not in your worst most terrible nightmare.”

Let’s be honest here for a few minutes, how many memorable horror villains have come up within the new millennium? Sure, there is the charismatic yet elaborate Jigsaw who has become a huge household name but that’s about it. We haven’t really had a known or recognizable face in horror besides him and with all the remakes out; I doubt we will ever find one. That is if you consider The Creeper. Yes, I am talking about that creepy demonic thing that walks around long coat, stalks people via truck, and eats for 23 days on every 23 spring. I consider him to be one of the most underrated horror movie villains of the past 10 or so years and there are a number of reasons why. The main reason why I think that is, unlike Jigsaw, he doesn’t have morals and he isn’t trying to teach people lessons but rather hunts and kills because he needs to. I want to discuss why The Creeper is, or should be, one of the greatest villains to emerge out of the new generation and to limit myself I will be only discussing his trains as shown through the first movie… for now.

Jason Voorhees has the machete, Michael Meyers has the kitchen knife, Freddy Krueger has his glove, Leatherface has his chainsaw, but what trademark tool does The Creeper have? The answer to that question is nothing. The new generation of horror villains don’t need a trademark weapon, instead their reputation is their trademark. Think about it. What can be worse than having some thing hunt you because it’s starving, because you caught it’s scent, because it needs you and because you have the right amount of fear that it feeds off of? These traits are so barbaric and animalistic that it’s unsettling to know that it isn’t even an animal but some kind of creature that has been around for years. Some may argue that it is his physical appearance that is trademark but I disagree. If it has to be appearance it would have to be the way he is dressed. Wearing only boots, an Australian drover coat, a wide brimmed hat and gloves; his scarecrow like persona only adds to the fact that he inspires fear into those around him. His look is gritty and dirty. It’s a look that I haven’t seen since Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

In terms of abilities he isn’t a zombie, he doesn’t have some curse on him, he isn’t an entity that lives in our imagination and he isn’t just some hard-boiled psychopath so his abilities are somewhat limited. However, this means that he is a creature that is not of this Earth and that means he is closer to being demonic than anything. The Creeper has extreme stamina and strength, even though his appearance resembles and old man. It seems as though he has super speed, which may come from the fact that he is hiding giant bat wings under his jacket. I haven’t seen a serial killer jump on somebody’s car hood; grab them by punching the hood open, and than slicing of his head. Hell, I haven’t seen a killer sniff another person’s head right before biting his tongue out. Actually, that brings me to a point relevant to the above paragraph… perhaps The Creeper’s signature weapon should have been the giant axe that he wields right before cutting off the cop’s head and this was way before Hatchet came out. I also like the fact that he can regenerate limbs, organs and body parts simply by consuming them off of humans. It’s such a grotesque way of body reconstruction that the mere thought of it is repulsing. That also might be one of his trademark features as well.

Now, is The Creeper an emotionless zombie? Does he feel emotion? Is he a homicidal goofball? Is he mildly retarded? Or, is he a prick? His personality isn’t what you’d call charming but he isn’t emotionally cold either. Let’s compare him to Jigsaw for a minute. Jigsaw is a dick. He likes to watch his victims suffer and before he captures him and if he meets them before hand, he is sarcastic and sort of acts like a douche. The Creeper is a cock. He knows that he is unbeatable and he likes letting his victims know it. Take for example right before he blasts off into the night with Darry, Darry’s sister pleads with him and just when she things she managed to change his mind… The Creeper smiles and shoots off into the sky. I’m willing to bed that one of those cops, or even Darry’s sister, deep down inside said, “What a cocky son of a bitch.” But this scene also reveals another very important characteristic about The Creeper. He isn’t the emotionally cold monster we may think he is but maybe he understands the pain he is causing. However, I’m willing to bet that he understands it but realized that he can’t do anything about it so he embraces what he is. Still, he is a cock-hole.

But as I think about it, is The Creeper just some mindless demon with some remorse to human life? Some people will argue that he is quite intelligent and rather artistic. Let’s look at some of the things he enjoys. First off, given that he is some giant bat thing, it’s very strange to see him whistle. Perhaps he’s learned it from humans and if that’s the case, I’m sure he learned plenty of other things. His ‘House of Pain’ is lined with dead corpses, which, as sick as it may be, is very artistic and original. I’ve never seen a villain appreciate artwork so much. If I am not mistaking, his dens (both in the chapel and in that industrial park) are filled with artwork and sculptures that he apparently made. By looking at the bodies that he’s stitched up and what he did to Darry in the end… he has demonstrated that he has a profound love for sewing and patchwork. But, the best artistic trait of all is that he not only has an old phonograph but he has a great taste in music. C’mon, what other villain out there listens to Louis Armstrong? Perhaps, The Creeper is a little more cunning and creative than Jigsaw.

Combined with his love for nostalgia (I am specifically talking about the fact that he won’t give up his souped 1941 Chevrolet COE), his love for good old time music, his demonic Southwestern appearance and his persistent attitude, this villain was made for me at least in terms of new generation movies. He is cunning, he is iconic and very intelligent and it’s such a shame that he isn’t as big as he should be. The Creeper has the opportunity of becoming one of the greatest villains of the past 10 years and it seems that people are a little distracted by Jigsaw. No matter, but maybe I can persuade them into looking deeper into The Creeper. Join me next time where I will be discussing his characteristics from the second movie.

Jeepers Creepers It's Not Football

This is probably going to be one of the most random posts I ever write up but hey… it’s something that I have always remembered because of how stupid I was. I remember when Jeepers Creepers came out because the poster for it caught my eye immediately when I walked past it. The raw slanted lettering that spells out the title of the movie made me want to take a pencil and draw out the entire poster by hand. The way that creepy, angry, almost dead looking eyes peers right at you. It made me want to see that movie but the fact was, I was too young still… so I had to see it once it came out on DVD. But, you want to know something really crazy? As I stood there staring at the poster I actually thought that Jeepers Creepers was a horror movie about football. Hard to believe but let me explain why…

The poster shows an eye peering out through a hole in something. This ‘something’ has stitching right down the middle, sort of like a shoelace or something, and whatever that something is it looks leathery. I came to the conclusion that it had to be a football. Perhaps not a modern day one but rather an old one from the 1920s or something and that made me think that it was a period piece. Now, since I thought it was a football I figured that the eye belonged to some sort of monster, or genie or demon that lived inside this football for years until it was released. Again, that doesn’t make sense because if this was a period piece, how could it be living inside a football for hundreds of years if football was invented in the 1900s. I never really figured out why they chose the name Jeepers Creepers but I figured it had to do something with the song.

At the age of 11 or 10, my imagination was wild and I could see something in a piece of bread that wasn’t really there but I would be convinced of it. I saw a football and a genie in the poster for Jeepers Creepers and as hard as I try to look at that poster now, I just can’t see it anymore. Perhaps it’s age or perhaps I lost my childhood imagination but one thing is for certain… I am glad that this movie wasn’t about football.

Old Music in Horror

I have seen The Shining well over 20 or so times and every time I see it, it freaks me out or reminds me of that time when I screamed when I saw the twin girls in the hall. However, one thing that has always given me the chills was at the end of the movie when the camera zooms in on the portrait and a specific song plays over the scene. That song was ‘Midnight, the Stars and You’ sung by Al Bowlly in 1934. It got me thinking of other movies that incorporated really old songs as part of their soundtracks and I started to wonder why these songs sound so creepy in horror movies but not in real life.



I think one of the reasons why the Al Bowlly songs was so creepy in The Shining is because of the way it was recorded. It sounds really muffled, very low key, Al Bowlly’s voice is echoing and it sounds so ominous. The intentions of the song are very chipper and very romantic, however, when it’s played… it sounds like the song is actually coming from the hotel. When I hear it, I immediately think of the tragedy that happened and how long ago it was and yet the hotel keeps replaying what happened. It’s repetition.

Another movie that does this quit well is Stephen King’s Rose Red. I will admit that this movie was pretty creepy and sometimes pretty intense. The one scene that I will always remember, among many, is the scene when ‘In The Mood’ by Glenn Miller starts playing out of the flowers. Now, the original recording wasn’t recorded like Al Bowlly’s song but what made it chilling was how the house took such a festive song and made it play out of a flower. I am sure any normal person would freak out over something like that.

Jeepers Creepers was brought up to me by somebody on Twitter as a movie that incorporates such a whimsical song into a dark and sadistic horror movie. I have to agree because the song plays over a tour of the Creeper’s lair. This chilling feeling is somewhat like that feeling of remorse, sorrow and horror in Apocalypse Now when ‘What A Wonderful World’ was playing over the bombings. It’s a They are contrasts of two vastly different feelings and seeing a dark, watery, silent, cold-feeling, eerie basement while hearing an echoing song is pretty terrifying. Plus, since you are the camera, you don’t know where you are headed and it only adds to the horror.

The other example that I have comes from a trailer for a horror themed video game called Bioshock. In the trailer we hear ‘Beyond the Sea’ (1959) sung by Bobby Darin play over while the protagonist tries shooting and destroying the Big Daddies, killing mutated monsters and blowing shit up. The reason why this song is so eerie is because of the same reason why the Al Bowlly song sounds so creepy. The editors tuned it up to make it have an echoing sound and pipe-sound. This tuning makes the song sound as if it was recorded under the ocean and it fits perfectly with the dark and threatening atmosphere.



There are plenty more that I am missing and I only talked about the more prominent ones. I know there is ‘Jazz Traditional – Charleston’ from The Evil Dead and Creepshow and a few in See No Evil. I think the reason why these horror movies are so creepy in horror movies is because of the context that they are used in. Plus, back then, they didn’t have such great audio capturing devices so a lot of times they are muffled, echoed or distorted… giving the song the perfect mood for that horror movies.

Top 15 Horror Movies of the Decade

To cut this short, here is my Top 15 Horror Movies of the Decade. Not really happy with this list but it’s as close to what I can find.

1. The Mist – This is my all time favorite movie of the decade because it was one of the best adapted Stephen King books since Shawshank Redemption or It. Darabont creates an extremely tenses atmosphere and keeps you on the edge of you seat as to what will happen next. The amazing performances by the cast fuels the story and it makes you feel for the characters when something happens. Marcia Gay Harden did a fantastic job of portraying the crazy Mrs. Carmody and the scenes when the Army guy gets hauled off and thrown outside had to have been one of the most powerful scenes in the whole movie and perhaps the entire decade. There is lots of gore, lost of creature effects and the ending of this movie will make you stunned long after the movie is over.

2. Trick ‘r Treat – I am obsessed with this movie. I didn’t really take that much into the praise but when I saw the trailer it blew my mind away and when I finally saw it all I could do was walk out of the theater stunned! The movie owes a lot to Creepshow and Halloween and it owes even more to the traditions of Halloween. It has great scares, great stories and everything ties in beautifully. There is new age horror and old school horror. The atmosphere was very cartoony but also very dark, which is something that a lot of horror movies this decade lacked… a tone and atmosphere to go with the scares. It was an overall great achievement in originality and pure horror fun.

3. The Descent – I have never felt so claustrophobic in my life as I was watching The Descent. This was a great and truly horrifying horror movie that takes place in a cave, the one place that you cannot escape mutants. Now this movie has the definition of tenseness, anticipation and true horror and almost at every turn you are just waiting for something to happen and waiting for something to jump out. This movie fucks with your head and the doesn’t offer any kind of sympathy for it’s audience. Technically, it was beautifully shot for being inside a cave most of the time, the lighting was very critical to the movie and the makeup was astonishing. It just goes to show you that there are still good stories out there.

4. Cloverfield – This makes my list because it was the first movie that I followed the viral marketing from the preview on Transformers, to the fake Alpha site, to Slusho, to Taragato, to the oilrig incident all the way up to the actual movie. It was a fun ride and never in my life have I been so excited and thrilled over a movie then when I saw Cloverfield. This movie does something that avoids all the cliché monster gimmicks and tells the story from the civilian point of view. This avoids being like Godzilla and passes all those cliché plot devices. It was all done on handheld camera and it was America’s response to 9/11 much like how Godzilla was Japan’s response to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

5. Drag Me To Hell – A triumphant return of classic, funny, balls out horror for Sam and Ted Raimi. This movie combined witty humor to gross and over the top humor with classic horror and jump-out scares. It was fun, original and it kept me enthralled in its story. You can easily tell that this somewhat like the Evil Dead series considering all the references it makes towards the films.

6. Dawn of the Dead – Out of all the remakes that came out this decade I think this one has to be one of the best because it’s made with the greatest respects to Romero’s original movie. It stays within the mall, it keeps the consumerism theme and it really plays on character development. It’s beautifully shot; the gore is great the zombies are wild. This is the only time that I would be able to except fast-pace zombies! I think we can learn a lot on how to make better remakes by studying this film and it’s well worth a watch for any zombie lover.

7. Land of the Dead – Romero has finally come back to what he knows best and that is making a great zombie movie and I think Land of the Dead is the next evolutionary step in that direction. This movie goes back to the basics of zombies for the first half and then slaps us with something we never expected… zombies that can actually think and have some kind of brain activity. If you know Romero’s stance on zombies and his ‘gospel’ then you’ll know this is something that he had planed. It has some great zombie effects and it has some funny and original zombie quarks. A great movie to go with Night, Day and Dawn.

8. Saw – Never since, possibly Ghostface, have we had a truly iconic and memorable horror villain till we got Jigsaw. His tactics, his brilliance and that infamous line “I want to play a game.” I think that Jigsaw has gone down in horror history and ranking up there with Jason, Freddy, Michael or Bates. Even more so, the score of Saw has become a staple in horror culture and has been used countless times. As for the movie, it’s original; it’s scary and brings something new to the horror genre. Like other horror icons, they made pointless sequels to it but that just shows you the magnitude this movie had.

9. Slither – James Gunn has shown us that he can take a ton of money and turn it into a studio made film that still retains it’s Troma-like qualities. This movie was fun to watch and I had a blast from start to finish. It had great humor, some witty dialogue and some outstanding creature effects and body distortions. I loved the gore and I loved how the movie progressed.

10. Paranormal Activity – This movie was made in respects to Blair Witch and it owes a lot to the ‘found footage’ genre. Even though it is receiving a slew of bad reviews now, it’s still a great original horror movie. It kept me on attentive and the sound design was great! It had some pretty scary moment and it really showed how the Internet has helped indie filmmakers.

11. The Hills Have Eyes – This is also another example of a remake done right. Aja takes the messy, grittiness of the original movie and adds in emotion, character studies and tense secluded atmosphere to make a truly horrifying film. The performances were top notch and I think what makes this movie stand out is the brutality of it and how it pays a lot to the survivor films of the 70s. This was a truly memorable film.

12. 28 Days Later – A wonderful take on the infection horror subgenre. It was fast paced, brilliantly edited and it really showed the scenery and devastation that the infection had on the city of London. It’s also a great study in personality and character. It also sparked a lot of controversy on whether or not the infected people were considered zombies or just infected people.

13. The Ring – Of all the Americanized versions of Japanese horror movies out there this one is the best because Verbinski keeps that surreal, gloomy, cold tone and the atmosphere t hat the original one had. There were some great moments and some great scares. The Ring was very disturbing and I think the score just accents the whole story. It is a must of any fan of the original.

14. Kairo – Out of all the good Japanese horror movies out there, and there are a lot to choose from, it was so hard narrowing it down to just one because all of them are so good!! I choose Kairo (Pulse) because it had to have been one of the saddest, compelling, atmospheric horror movie I had seen. There is so much subtext and meaning behind it that I was blown away. I loved this movie and the only thing that comes close to it would be The Eye.

15. Jeepers Creepers – I have this one on here because it’s probably one of the B-list horror superstars and although I am not a fan of Slava’s work, I think he did a great job with this movie. I loved The Creeper and I loved how this movie is almost like a horror western and just the general idea. It’s a great, gory movie that has so many “what the fuck” moments and I think it’s one of the best original horror movies of this decade. I loved the character of The Creeper and there is so much yet to be told, but it was also one of the first horror movies that I saw in a theater.