Jeepers Creepers: What Is The Creeper?

When Victor Salva copied Stephen King’s every twenty-odd years it gets to eat rule, he did it avoid making a sequel. But, with Gina Phillips and Justin Long’s 2001 monster flick becoming the highest grossing film during Labor Day weekend, the godfather Francis Ford Coppola quickly convinced Salva to shove his artistic integrity aside for mountains of cash.

Since then, Jeepers Creepers has become a marred trilogy that is hard to stomach. Yet, despite sinking from unconventional and minimalistic to goofy trash, fans of the original are still stubbornly invested due to wanting to know the Creeper’s origin.

Granted, devotees of television shows like Lost will warn that long anticipated answers seldom satisfy, but after waiting nearly twenty years for Jeepers Creepers 3 and being given nothing new, it’s impossible to not continue speculating.

Popular and out-there theories vary from it being the urban legend Mothman to the Babylonian Pazuzu from the Exorcist series, yet the Creeper’s true nature is likely far different and even more sinister…

The Creeper is a fiend that every 23rd year awakens in spring to eat terrified idiots. It walks, drives, and from far away looks like a human, and a deleted scene from the original shows it even talks like a westerner.

However, with bat-like wings, yellow fangs that could do with meeting a toothbrush, and a rubbery shell that conveniently comes with a zipper, the Creeper is much more than your average serial killer. Instead, it is a flying monster who enjoys driving up and down barren roads and creating daggers that function as its kryptonite.

Eating people to replace defunct body parts like a lopsided head, crushed feet, and pale eyes, the Creeper’s arsenal includes Kratos’ axe, ninja stars made from bones, skin and teeth, and a weaponised truck that would make Batman jealous. A third, secret nostril helps it choose who to eat by specifically smelling people’s fear, making Salva’s beast even more of a Pennywise knock-off.

Changing its personality in-between movies, the Creeper turned from a straight-to-business, unstoppable beast to a Poundland Freddie Kreuger. In addition, the sequels introduced the concept of its victims becoming a reluctant part of it spiritually, which is grossly contrived seeing as Darry and Trish were warned by the local nut rather than ghosts.