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.