(Note: These are not facts, they are "my" ideas, which may be based in truth, but not necessarily so.)
The Creeper (so-called in end credits) has a vanity plate hanging off the back of his truck that reads, "BEATNGU." I'd have liked to see this gruesome little bastard hunched over in wings at the DMV, filling out his renewal form with twenty bucks in hand. Unfortunately, the film has an agenda that doesn't allow for intentional humor. Familiar with the monster after 90 minutes, his ride probably isn't even registered or insured. Who's going to sign this guy onto an insurance policy? Farmer's, maybe
It's all scares for this body-consuming fairytale. A creepy little low-budget thriller that works on the surface as a seat-squeezing good time, Jeepers Creepers is hiding something deep beneath it's cracked veneer. I was set to enjoy this slaughterfest, it having been touted as the "scariest horror movie in years." Then I learned it was written and directed by convicted pedophile Victor Salva, who also created the film Powder. I don't like bringing personal politics into my judgement of someone's art, but Salva's past steered me away from that autobiographical albino "Christ-comparison". When I finally did see it, I read a lot of things into the piece that may or may not have been there. I applied "Feminist and Queer Theory", and especially "Auteur Theory" to Powder, and it seemed that a lot of Salva's past was coming through the material. I couldn't help but do the same thing here. Thrusting myself openly into Jeepers Creepers, blatant themes of homosexuality and pedophilia came to the surface with such rapid speed I couldn't sit back and watch it as "simple" escapist entertainment.
I spent my time in the chair second-guessing everything on screen.
Creepers starts out as a Texas Chainsaw 3 retread, which you'd know if you ever made it that far in the series. Brother and Sister are on their way home, taking the country back roads for no other good reason than to run into some horrible nightmare. And they do so quickly. This is where the material veers slightly from Chainsaw 3's ulterior motive: The "monster" in that film is a caricature of known serial killer Ed Gein; there is no hidden agenda behind his façade. He has a thing for wearing women's skin, he's a cannibal, and he kills because he likes it. End of story.
The "monster" here "could" be a metaphor for the psychological disorder that urges pedophilia in men. Salva doesn't ask us to sympathize with one of society's biggest taboos. Instead, he shows it's ugliness as an evil growing inside one's self, out of control, that can't be stopped. Nothing can cure the disease: It needs to feed. Now, hear me out. I know you may be thinking, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." If you look deep enough, you'll find a penny in a hooker's mouth, right? Well, I've run down the list of events in this thing, and the pieces seem to fit.
When we are first introduced to Trish and Darry, Darry makes several references to being gay, and his own sister calls him a "closet case." The underwear in his gym bag has been dyed pink. Justin Long, who plays Darry, is supposed to be in college, but he has a very adolescent quality about him. He looks like a young boy; his face contains an oily sheen prominent in teens going through puberty. There are long shots of his sweaty body; his sleeve ripped off showing skin. The fabric around his belly button is also missing, showing off a rose tattoo. Considering some of his future decisions, Darry seems to be a young man unsure of his sexuality, and the "monster," or The Creeper, is the vehicle through which he discovers these things about himself.
Long's character posses a need for discovery that doesn't fit into the ideal commonwealth. He continually goes back to things society has deemed wrong or immoral. He seems stupid to us, the audience, doing things we know he shouldn't be doing. This reflects back into case studies of young boys who have been molested, who, out of curiosity and insecurity, go back to the person that has molested them. Some of these kids also turn to homosexuality as a way of dealing with unsure emotions. Here, the director turns the gullibility of a child trapped in a threatening sexual situation into a horror cliche that causes us, as an audience, to howl at the screen.
Cars are seen as vessels of the body. During the first attack, the boy is behind the wheel. The Creeper drives a truck, its body long and shaft-like, its cab a bulbous head. The monster unflinchingly rams the front of the vehicle into Darry's trunk. He does this in a continual, thrusting motion. It's a clear violation of Darry's space, and it terrifies the young man. How thinly veiled is the metaphor behind tying a "trunk" shut with "pink" underwear after it's been damaged? Not very. It's after this initial "rape" that Darry becomes obsessed in tracking down and understanding the motives of the "monster."
When we first see The Creeper, he is dumping dead bodies down a long tube. The tube is very vaginal in appearance, leading to a room, or a "womb", that is filled with pain and dead bodies. This process of exorcising decomposed flesh may represent the emotional emptiness in having sex with a woman, common in pedophiles. The "monster" has sought help in heterosexuality, but there is nothing inside. It's a lost cause, failing to satiate the need. Soon, Darry is crawling down this same tube. Once inside, he wants out. He can't stand being in the "vagina" as it were. When he falls completely into the womb, he finds the horrors that await him there. By the time he finds his way out, he is in a state of shock, unable to speak. He has become detached from the feminine side of the human psyche. Nether the victim, nor the victimizer, is able to cope with women on a level sexual playing field.
That leads us to the sister, Trish, played by Gina Philips. She is older, a mother figure. She is seen as a non-sexual being, and it is revealed that her heterosexual relationship has failed. The "monster" has no vested interest in her. He is in relentless pursuit of the boy. He gets a whiff of the boy's scent and hunts him down. The Creeper even digs into Darry's laundry, sniffing the boy's dirty undies. He has to feed this inner desire he cannot control.
There is a scene where Darry and Trish run over the ugly beast repeatedly with the car. This time Trish, the woman, is behind the wheel. It comes as a therapy session where an idea is beat into a patient's head continuously. It's society saying, "What you are doing is wrong. Touching young boys is wrong." The Creeper lies in a pile of mush on the asphalt. He seems to be dead. The unnatural urges seem to have subsided. The patient is cured. Then Darry looks at The Creeper, and an erect wing goes up in the air. It's telling us that no matter the amount of help, no matter how far down feelings are repressed, those feelings are still going to be there, deep inside. And they will eventually appear again.
This theme also surfaces in the ending. The Creeper comes to take Darry away, sniffing his body up and down like a horny dog. The sister steps up to the plate and starts yelling, "You want me. Take me. This is what you want. I'm stronger." She is telling the sexual impulse that homosexuality is wrong. She is telling that ugly desire it is not right to want young boys. But it's an unheard message. A tree falling in the woods. The "monster" knows what it wants and flies off with the boy. The Creeper takes Darry's eyes, because they are, after all, the windows to the soul. He has been tainted; after a serious body violation there is no return to what our public has deemed as normalcy.
The police are shown as a useless tool in quenching depraved sexual appetites. They are killed off quickly, and don't appear as much hope to Darry and his sister. They can capture the beast, but they cannot tame the beast. The criminal justice system can easily put sex offenders and molesters in jail, but they can't keep them there. Eventually, they will be released, and nine times out of ten, they will return to carrying out their depraved actions.
There is a moment late in the movie Saving Private Ryan, where Upham stands in the hallway while Mellish is stabbed by a German in the next room. This scene represents America standing by, doing nothing while the Jews were being eradicated. I'm not making this up; it's in a book about the movie. There is a scene that plays out similar, here. After Darry crawls out of the "womb," after having his "trunk" violated, he and Trish run into a Diner and yell for help. Everyone stands by, unfazed, doing nothing. They are oblivious. This goes back to a lot of people, especially parents of abused children, ignoring signs and cries for help from those who have been violated or molested.
I hope I'm giving the man too much credit. Maybe this is just a dumb horror movie; it seems too smart in building its many layers for that, though. It may require more than one viewing. I don't feel we should have to pay for Jeepers Creepers, it should instead be offered up for study, free of charge. I can't deny the empty, seasick feeling it has left in my stomach, and there are some items that play out nicely.
I especially liked a scene that sees The Creeper on top of a police car, wielding an ax to Siouxsie and the Banshee's Peepshow. There is alos a missed opportunity that would have killed. Trish and Darry run to a house in the middle of nowhere to use the phone. It looks just like the Sawyer house out of Chainsaw 3. I was hoping they'd run to the window, look inside to see Leatherface and family dinning, and then look at each other realizing their plight may not be so bad. Nope. I'm denied as they run into an old lady with a milieu of cats.
Part of me feels that Victor Salva shouldn't be making movies. Someone ought to slap Coppola upside the head for giving him the money to make this. Of course, after watching Redux, I can sense his head isn't exactly in the right place. There are so many talented people in this world that aren't given a voice, something seems wrong about giving one to Victor Salva.
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