10 WTF Horror Movie Scenes Inspired By Real Life
2. The First Encounter With The Creeper - Jeepers Creepers
Say what you will about the rest of the movie, but Jeepers Creepers' opening sequence is a brilliantly taut exercise in expertly-wound suspense.
Siblings Trish (Gina Philips) and Darry (Justin Long) drive through the Florida countryside, find themselves aggressively tailed by a rusted out old truck, and a short time later see the truck pulled over with the driver now dumping bodies down a large pipe.
It's bone-chilling stuff, and loosely inspired by the real-life 1990 case of Dennis DePue, who murdered his wife and consequently went on the run.
The story was covered in an episode of Unsolved Mysteries the very next year, which included the account of a couple who, while driving on a Michigan backroad after the murder, spotted a man later identified as DePue disposing of his wife's body. The interruption caused DePue to tail them for a few miles before moving on.
Obviously DePue wasn't a demonic creature like the Creeper, but the similarity between the visual style of the dramatisation in Unsolved Mysteries and the opening of Jeepers Creepers is enough to suggest it was a direct influence.