The Creeper (Jeepers Creepers)
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| Jeepers Creepers Character | |
|---|---|
 |
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| The Creeper | |
| Gender: | Male |
| Race | Unknown |
| Height: | 5'10" (approx) |
| Weight: | 150-175 lbs. |
| Sleep/Awaken | 23rd Springs - 23 Days |
| Location | Unknown |
| Family | Unknown |
| Death Toll | 300 confirmed dead |
| Film(s) | Jeepers Creepers & Jeepers Creepers 2 |
The Creeper is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the popular horror movie series Jeepers Creepers. He is an ancient demon who feeds on human beings for twenty-three days every twenty-third Spring. In all of his appearances, he is played by Jonathan Breck. The Creeper is arguably among one of the most peculiar antagonists ever made.
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[edit] Appearance
The Creeper is an ancient demon who often dresses like an ordinary human man. To hide his demonic features, the Creeper is always dressed in a long, tattered duster and face-concealing cowboy hat. In the first film, he also wears heavy boots. In the sequel he goes barefoot (a tactic he likely uses to divebomb and pick up his victims with his prehensile feet).
When unclothed, the Creeper is revealed to have very mottled green and brown skin. A pair of wing-like mandibles or skin flaps are located on each side of his face (and apparently spread when he is in high stress or enraged). He also sports a huge pair of batlike wings on his back, which fold up tightly enough that they are completely unnoticeable underneath his coat.
[edit] History
The creeper awakens the beginning of every 23rd Spring. Within this period, he has 23 days to eat. He is shown to only eat humans, although whether or not he eats other animals isn't revealed. The Creeper only consumes organs or organic material from a person for his own biding. He then either uses the remaining body parts as tools for weapons, or later nourishment for his survival. In Jeepers Creepers 2, the Creeper used an extravagantly sharp tool to easily puncture very thick tires. It is not clear where the Creeper sleeps and hibernates during his 23 years of dormancy. In the first Jeepers Creepers, the Creeper had his own little "shack" of victims at the end of the movie. This is assumed to be where he sleeps. Another theory, presented in Jeeper Creepers 2, is that the Creeper sleeps underground so that he is not found while asleep.
[edit] Storyline
[edit] Jeepers Creepers
The Creeper first appears as an unknown driver in a brown truck who tries to run bickering siblings Darrell and Patricia Jenner off the road, who are on their way home for a college break. Although they evade him the first time, they later see the Creeper dumping a wrapped body down a drainpipe, and when the Creeper sees them, he tries to run them over again, only to fail and drive off into the distance.
Later on, the Creeper returns to the Church Cellar where he dumped the bodies earlier on, and realises from a strange scent that the Jenners were there. Enraged, the Creeper goes on a man-hunt to track down the Jenners and kill them after setting the church ablaze. He eventually finds their car in a petrol station and takes a sniff of Darry's dirty laundry, and it is then that he realises that there may be something from Darry that he may like to eat.
As Darry and Trish are being escorted to the Church by the police, the Creeper attacks the police and beheads them, loading their corpses into his truck. He then sets his eyes on the Jenners, whom he eventually follows to the house of a strange cat lady. The Creeper kills the cat lady, and chases the Jenners until he is ultimately run over numerous times by their car and severely damaged.
Determined to get his revenge and his lost limbs back, the Creeper tails Darry and Trish to the police station and attacks the prisoners, from whom he regains his lost leg and arm. He then sets his eyes on the Jenners, and ultimately finds them hiding in an interrogation room, where he traps them and choses to take Darry just as the police come into the room with shot guns.
Despite Trish begging him to do otherwise, the silent Creeper flies off with Darry in his arms and into the dark night. Later on, we see that what he actually wanted from Darry were his eyes, since Darry is seen dead, with his eyes ripped out in the final scene of the film.
[edit] Jeepers Creepers II
A few days after killing Darry Jenner, the Creeper carries on with his killing spree and eventually finds and kills a young boy named Billy Taggart, the son of farmer Jack Taggart and brother of Jack Taggart Jr. Unknown to the Creeper, Taggart swears revenge on him.
Later on, on his twenty-third and final day, the Creeper attacks a school bus full of teenagers on the infamous East 9 motorway by bursting their tires with super-sharp blades. As night falls with the school teachers attempting unsuccessfully to call for help, the Creeper starts to kill the people on the bus one by one, and is even forced to eat the head of one pupil after being impaled through the eye with a javelin.
As the students escape from the bus, the Creeper chases them and kills two more of them until he is encountered by his old enemies: Jack Taggart and Jack Taggart Jr. Taggart aims a harpoon machine at the Creeper and fires, but the Creeper catches it and pulls it out of Taggart's truck. The Creeper even causes Taggart's truck to completely turn over, but the Taggarts escape in time.
The Creeper then turns his attention to the remaining three teenagers (the others either escaped in time or were picked off one by one at an alarming rate) and flies after them as they attempt to escape the East 9 in a crashed truck. The Creeper almost catches one of them when the driver plays a dangerous trick and sends the Creeper flying straight through the windshield, tearing off both his wings, one of his arms, and one of his legs.
Still not dead, the Creeper barely chases after an injured teenager and ultimately catches up with him. The Creeper and the teen wrestle on the ground; the Creeper's would-be victim forces him upwards, right into the path of Taggart's harpoon cannon. Taggart fires a harpoon straight through the Creeper's head, nailing him to the ground.
To avenge his son, Taggart gets another harpoon and stabs the Creeper constantly in the stomach until the Creeper ceases to breathe. But one of the teenagers claims that the Creeper is not dead, but it's time ran out. Determined to find out for himself, Taggart takes the Creeper's remains and hangs him up in his shed as a "Bat from Hell" for the next twenty-three years.
Twenty-three years later, an old Taggart is seen in the shed sitting by his harpoon machine, with the harpoon pointing straight at the hung Creeper's heart.
Whether or not the Creeper wakes up remains unknown.
[edit] Abilities
The Creeper has the unique ability to regenerate his own version of whatever body part he devours, and has allegedly survived throughout the ages since Biblical times using this ability, replenishing its deteriorated body by feeding on people for twenty-three days in twenty-three year cycles. The ability also works as a form of healing factor, as the Creeper can discard injured or maimed body parts after ingesting a replacement version.
Physiologically, the Creeper is humanoid, but with green scaly skin and razor sharp claws and teeth. Hidden under his black duster coat are a pair of enormous bat-like wings, which he can use to propel himself and at least one other fully grown man or woman through the air in flight.
The Creeper possesses a keen sense of smell. When humans experience fear around him, their bodies give off a scent which helps him detect organs he may need from them.
The Creeper has seemingly advanced speed and strength. He is strong enough to tear apart automobile frames and rend the human body limb from limb. He can also seemingly effortlessly grab and lift fully grown men and women while in flight. During flight he is fast enough to easily overtake a sprinting human being and keep up with a speeding automobile.
Though it is never revealed how he developed these skills amidst his hybernation cycle, the Creeper is also well-versed in physical combat (including using throwing and mele weapons), stealth, stitching, driving, and mechanics. He also has at least a crude but working knowledge of human biology.
[edit] Weapons
The Creeper employs a variety of weapons in his pursuit for food. Those seen in the film include a large, ancient looking battle axe, a collection of daggers, and throwing stars seemingly made from the bone and flesh of his victims (at least one is seen to sport a belly button). He also drives a very large, grotesque looking delivery truck (sporting the license plate "BEATINGU") which can has been altered so that it can achieve speeds far greater than a vehicle of its size normally would. When he so desires, The Creeper is more than willing to utilize the truck as a battering ram.
[edit] Trivia
- His "hunting ground" is in or around Poho County, or on the East 9 highway of Poho County. It is also where he keeps his victims, under an old church.
- The old church the Creeper uses as a base of operations is south of a town called Pertwilla and could be as old as two-hundred.
- It is said he is immortal because he has eaten so many hearts that his own will never stop beating.
- DVD Commentaries from Jeepers Creepers II Victor Salva and Jonathan Breck said the Creeper's Origins dated back to Biblical Times.
- The sound of the Creeper eating his food is inexplicably different in the two films. In the original, the sound of him eating is that of a repeated deep, echoing "gulp" sound. In the sequel, the Creeper can be heard crunching and chomping down through a victim's skull.
- It is never explained in either film what the Creeper must devour to revitalize or replace his enourmous bat-like wings.
- As the Creeper is impaled through the head in the second film, it can be concluded that either the creature's brain does not reside inside its head, or that, due to either biological or supernatural reasons, it can function with a severly traumatized brain.
