| Jeepers Creepers | |
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Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Victor Salva |
| Produced by | Francis Ford Coppola Tom Luse Barry Opper |
| Written by | Victor Salva |
| Starring | Gina Philips Justin Long Jonathan Breck |
| Music by | Bennett Salvay |
| Cinematography | Don E. FauntLeRoy |
| Editing by | Ed Marx |
| Studio | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Myriad Pictures American Zoetrope Capitol Films |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
| Release date(s) | August 31, 2001 |
| Running time | 91 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $10 million |
| Box office | $59,217,789 |
Jeepers Creepers is a 2001 horror film written and directed by Victor Salva. The movie takes its name from the 1938 song "Jeepers Creepers" which is featured in the film.
Contents |
The film chronicles a day in the life of siblings, Trish (Gina Philips) and her brother Darry Jenner (Justin Long) coming home from college for spring break. As they drive through the Florida countryside in their 1960 Chevrolet Impala, a mysterious driver in a rusty old delivery truck tries to run them off the road. After letting the vehicle pass them, they later see the same truck, in the distance off the side of the road, with a hulking man sliding what looks to be bodies covered with blood stained sheets, into a large pipe sticking out of the ground next to an old, abandoned church.
The driver, noticing Darry and Trish have seen him, catches up to them and tries to run them off the road a second time. After barely escaping, Darry insists they go back to the church and investigate. Darry proceeds to crawl inside the pipe with Trish holding on to him, but she loses her grip and he slides down the pipe. At the bottom, he finds hundreds of bodies sewn together in a "psycho version of the Sistine Chapel", covering the walls of a massive cavern beneath the church. Darry can not reach the end of the pipe, which looms above his head, so he looks around and finally finds a passage up through the church. Visibly traumatized by what he has seen, he and Trish flee the scene and stop at a gas station where they contact the police. While waiting for the cops to arrive, they are phoned by a strange woman who warns them that they are in terrible danger. She plays the song "Jeepers Creepers" on the phone, and tells them that when they hear that song, they will be in extreme danger. Confused and frightened, they ignore her warning. Word arrives that the old church had gone up in flames, and all evidence of any bodies has been destroyed. Trish and Darry rush out of the gas station with the police providing a security escort.
As they travel, the police are attacked and killed by the mysterious driver of the old truck. While Trish and Darry flee the scene, the driver loads the policemen's bodies into his truck. Fleeing once again, Trish and Darry stop at a reclusive old woman's house, begging her to call the police. The woman complies, until she notices the driver hiding in her yard. She tries to kill him with her shotgun, but in the process, the driver attacks and presumably kills her. Trish manages to hit the mysterious driver with their car, and run him over several times. After crushing the mysterious driver's body, they are horrified to discover a giant wing tearing through the driver's trenchcoat. Leaving it on the road, they drive to the local police station to wait for their parents, when they receive another visitor; Jezelle Gay Hartman, another local eccentric whom claims to be psychic. She reveals herself as the woman who phoned Darry and Trish previously at the diner.
Jezelle tells them the true nature of the mysterious creature: it is an ancient demon known as "The Creeper", which rises every twenty-third spring for twenty-three days to feast on human body parts which, upon consumption, form part of its own body. She also tells them that it seeks out its victims through fear, and that by smelling the fear from Trish and Darry, it has found something it likes, but she does not know what.
The wounded Creeper attacks the police station and gains entrance to the cells. After feasting on some of the prisoners in order to heal, it is swarmed by police, killing a number of them. Jezelle, Trish and Darry attempt to escape but find themselves trapped. Jezelle warns that one of them will die a horrible death, while the song "Jeepers Creepers" plays on a gramophone in the background. The three are then discovered by the Creeper, and are separated. The Creeper heads towards Jezelle and sniffs her, but lets her go, and heads off to find Trish and Darry.
After a lengthy chase, the Creeper catches both Trish and Darry by their throats. After sniffing (and even tasting) them, the Creeper throws Trish aside and chooses to eat Darry. Trish tries to reason with it, and attempts to give her life for her brother's. The police burst in and take aim, but the Creeper escapes out the window with Darry. The next day, Trish, contemplating Darry's fate, is picked up by her parents, and Jezelle returns home in regret.
The final scene shows the Creeper in its new hideout, an abandoned meat packing plant, where the audience finally learns what the Creeper wanted: by ripping out the back of Darry's head, it has taken his eyes, leaving Darry's body an eyeless, motionless corpse, while "Jeepers Creepers" is playing in the background. The film ends with Creeper looking at the audience through Darry's eye socket.
In a brief shot after the credits, the camera shows the driver's window of the Creeper's truck rolled down, with the Creeper smiling at the audience.
BBC Movies gave four stars out of five stating, "An unsettling, gory, but intelligent horror flick... The result is a scary movie that will have you cowering beneath your popcorn bucket.[1] It holds a 45% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[2]
Jeepers Creepers opened in 2,944 theaters and took in a domestic gross of $37,904,175; it later made $21,313,614 internationally, making a total of $59,217,789 worldwide.[3]
It broke the record for the highest ever Labor Day opening weekend gross. The record for Labor Day weekend four-day gross is now held by Halloween. Jeepers Creepers now holds the #5 spot and the #3 spot goes to its successor, Jeepers Creepers 2.[4]
In 2003, a sequel was released, Jeepers Creepers 2. Events in the second film take place days after the first film. The Creeper and Darry are the only characters to appear in both films, although they are not the only actors to appear in both films. In the first film, actor Tom Tarantini appears as the minor character "Austin McCoy" AKA "Roach" who is a car thief and regular in the Poho County jail. In the second film, he portrays "Coach Dwayne Barnes".
MGM has announced a third installment, Jeepers Creepers 3: Cathedral. The film will continue the story of the original film with Trish (Gina Philips) as she fears her son will have the same fate as her long lost brother, Darry (Justin Long), the boy's namesake. The film will also feature the infamous Creeper truck. Jonathan Breck will return as The Creeper. Victor Salva will return as both director and writer. It has recently been confirmed that MGM Studios is interested in bringing a fourth film to the series and that they intend Salva to film it back-to-back with Jeepers Creepers 3.[5]
| Preceded by American Pie 2 |
Box office number-one films of 2001 (USA) September 2 |
Succeeded by The Musketeer |
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