I would like to preface this piece with a little information and a disclaimer. First, I am going to presuppose you have not only seen the film in question, but are aware of the directors troubled past. I highly recommend watching the picture as it's one of the best horror movies of the last 20 years, regardless of its creators actions, which I obviously consider abhorrent and unforgivable. Second, all ensuing theories I am about to postulate in regards to the directors intentions and psychological state are entirely my own. They are my carefully considered opinions based solely upon correlating the information I am aware of concerning Salva's past transgressions with what I read to be the subtext of the film.
I first saw Jeepers Creepers opening day, August 31, 2001 in a theater by myself. I'm a big fan of taking in Friday matinees of new releases before the crowds roll in. I had read some decent notices in the local papers that thankfully didn't reveal much in the way of plot specifics. This being pre-internet (for me in any case), I essentially went into it cold, having not seen any television advertisements or other promotional material. I was floored by its unremitting intensity, unsettling depravity and clever ingenuity. The first thing it brought to mind was the slashers of yore, Nightmare on Elm Street in particular. But there was something much darker about it. It seemed vastly more certain of its intent than some haphazard bogeyman origin story. It was assured, guided by a purposeful hand, so to speak.
The film making and story structure are absolutely beyond reproach. A timeless fairy tale, its power lies in its simplicity, as it does for other perfect horror films such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Night of the Living Dead. Yes, I would consider Jeepers Creepers a perfect horror film. It presents us with likable leads, introduces a menace, then proceeds to expertly ratchet up the tension, revulsion and terror until arriving at a bleak, soul-crushing finale. It creates its own world, its own mythos, and it does so with supreme confidence. These are the hallmarks for a masterful genre exercise. This film represents a clear vision being lovingly articulated by the man whose mind conjured it forth, and therein lies the problem.
When I first saw the film, I had no idea about its auteur's arrest, conviction and imprisonment for the (apparently videotaped) sexual assault of a 12 year old boy on the set of his first feature, 1989's Clownhouse. After learning this and re-watching Jeepers Creepers before the release of its sequel, I was, and continue to be flabbergasted these pictures were greenlit in the first place, let alone allowed to see the light of day. It strikes me as abundantly clear what sort of demons Salva was working through while crafting his magnum opus, and the shocking conclusions he appears to have come to concerning his own monstrous predilections.
Obviously, the creeper represents a sick extension of his desires and fantasies. A shadowy figure who derives his power and satisfaction from abducting young men and "taking" the parts he wants from them, so chosen by his ability to smell their fear. He drives around in a molester van, wearing a trench coat, terrorizing Darius (Justin Long) by smelling big handfuls of his dirty laundry, leaving his underwear strewn about a service station. Salva's sexual preference for young men not only informs every frame of his work, it turns genre expectation on its ear, portraying Long's Darius as the object of the creatures attention. He's the one constantly imperiled and put in compromising situations, his shirt being ripped to expose his midriff which facilitates a topless scene later while changing. These are the sort of paces a leering director would usually put a young starlet through to appease the horror genres predominantly male fan base.
Salva (and the Creeper, but more on that later) couldn't seem less interested in Gina Phillips' Trish, as either a character or eye candy for male patrons. She's primarily there to drive the car after the first attack, endlessly grinding its damaged gears, further aggravating the audiences already frazzled nerves. There's a bunch of icky, small touches where Salva equates terror with sexual arousal, such as the spent, seemingly post coital afterglow Darius and his sister (also:yuck) are clearly in after the Creeper runs them off the road. Just as in Creepers 2, there's an unnecessary urinating-in-a-field scene, apparently a Salva staple. A definite undercurrent of disdain toward and mistrust of traditional heterosexual relationships pervades the film with allusions to their unhappy parents and Trish breaking off her recent relationship for reasons not readily discussed.
The ultimate statement of the film comes in the final act. When trapped in a police station, the Creeper confronts Trish and Darry in an interrogation room and is forced to select which one to take as his victim. Policemen burst in, and after her pleading with him, he chooses to take Darry, plainly because she is not scared of him and Darry is, writhing helplessly in his grasp. This decision is visually represented (again, in an interrogation room in front of a phalanx of police officers) in an unarguably confessional fashion. The Creeper reveals his true form by elongating reptilian tendrils on his head and lets loose an anguished, pitiable howl. His choice has been made. He has revealed what he is to the authorities. We then cut to an abandoned factory, Darry's screams echoing through its bowels as some unspeakable torment is visited upon him. The stinger is a shot of Darry's naked, ruined body, the eyes removed. The Creeper rises up behind the corpse, peering unashamedly through the bloody, empty socket at the audience.
I interpret this as not only an admission of Salva's sexual desire for young, terrified men and the personification of the power he wishes to lord over them, but as him taking vicarious pleasure in the punishment meted out to Darius. By symbolically removing the eyes of the child who informed the authorities of his crime, he is freed to escape to a sort of safe mental harbor, represented by the abandoned factory, in which he can wallow in his misdeeds and re-experience them away from prying eyes. There is no comeuppance for the Creeper and no real judgement passed on him either. He's presented as without choice in the matter, an elemental creature merely acting on his demonic biology. As the psychic Jezelle says "He dresses like a man, to hide the fact that he isn't." A telling line of dialogue if ever there was, succinctly summing up how the director views himself, and possibly how he believes the world perceives him.
Seemingly emboldened by the films financial and critical success, Salva upped the ante with Jeepers Creepers 2, opening the film with a nightmarish abduction of a boy around 12 years of age, and it only gets worse from there. A stranded squad of shirtless teen 'ballers is leered at inside a school bus and picked off one by one in this feature length statement of guilt. The sequence where the Creeper hangs upside down at the buses emergency exit, sniffing at the glass orgasmically, fogging it up and licking off the condensation, is insanely egregious and altogether disturbing to watch.
These are sadly fascinating films. Extraordinarily well made artistic admissions of mental illness by a tortured soul. My appreciation of the films technical merits should in no way be interpreted as me condoning the directors crimes. His actions were reprehensible and I feel these films should be enough to merit further investigation into his current activities. I pray he continues down the straight and narrow path (pun not intended), using art as a means to explore his inner turmoil without inflicting any more harm.
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