Creeper (Jeepers Creepers)

"It eats lungs so it can breathe, and eyes so it can see. It all becomes a part of it. Whatever it eats, becomes a part of it."

- Jezelle Gay Hartman about the Creeper.

The Creeper is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the 2001 horror film, Jeepers Creepers, and its 2003 sequel Jeepers Creepers II. It is an ancient demon creature who feeds on human beings for 23 days every 23rd spring.

It was portrayed by the legendary actor, Jonathan Breck.

History
"I don't know if its a demon or a devil, or just some hungry thing from some dark place in time."

- Jezelle Gay Hartman about the Creeper.

The Creeper is a demon that eats body parts of his victims every 23 years, that seems nearly invincible. At first, it was thought to be some kind of demon worshiper when Darry Jenner found Its self portraits. It has whispy white hair. It seems to be incapable of speech, but in the first film it was heard whistling the tune of "Jeepers Creepers".

His Appetite
The Creeper has the ability to regenerate any part of his body by devouring a similar part from a victim. In this manner, he has survived since Biblical times, replenishing his deteriorated body by ingesting human flesh and organs. 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, as shown in Jeepers Creepers II.

Immortality
''"I think It's eaten too many hearts for Its own to ever stop..."

- Jezelle Gay Hartman about the Creeper. ''

In addition to his regenerative powers, the Creeper is quite resilient. In the first film, it was run over several times and was still alive, it then sprouted a bat-like wing. In the second film it is impaled with harpoons multiple times yet retains the ability to move, including several head wounds. The Creeper only stops moving when it reaches its hibernation period.

Jeepers Creepers
The film chronicles a day in the life of siblings, Trish and her brother Darry Jenner coming home from college. As they drive through the North 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 in old canvas tarps, into a large piece of metal culvert sticking out of the ground next to an old abandoned church.

The driver, taking note that they have seen him, catches up to them and tries to run them off the road a second time, Darry insists they go back and investigate. Darry orders Trish to hold his feet while he looks into the pipe. Rats appear in front of him and he jerks and screams, causing Trish to lose her grip on his legs, and he slides down the pipe badly cutting himself. At the bottom, he finds a dying boy, with a huge stitch across his torso, he tries to tell him something but dies before he can. He finds Kenny and Darla sewn together, along with hundreds of bodies sewn together, covering the walls of a massive cavern beneath the church. Darry can not reach the end of the culvert 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 local psychic, Jezelle Hartman, 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. Badly frightened, they ignore her warning. Shortly after the police arrive and Darry tells his story word arrises that the old church had gone up in flames and all evidence of any bodies has been destroyed. Within moments, witnesses at the gas station claim to have spotted someone ransacking the siblings' car and sniffing all of the clothes they had kept in it. Trish and Darry rush out of the gas station with the police providing a security escort.

As they travel they hear a newer version of the song, then 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. Darry and Trish try to get help from a local eccentric, but the mysterious driver catches up to them, the woman attempts to kill him with a shotgun but he jumps out of the way and into her house, she runs in and the driver stabs her through the torso with the gun and kills her. They manage to hit the mysterious driver with their car, and run him over several times. After crushing the mysterious driver's body, they realized its inhuman nature when what appears to be a giant wing begins to flap around. Leaving it on the road, they drive to the local police station to wait for their parents, but Jezelle shows up and warns them they are still in danger.

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, determined to avenge all the trouble Darry and Trish caused it. After it feasts on prisoners to heal, it is swarmed by police, but kills a number of them. Jezelle guides Trish and Darry upstairs, telling them one of them will die, screaming in the dark while the song "Jeepers Creepers" plays in the background. The Creeper heads towards Jezelle and sniffs her, but since she has no fear of him he lets her go, and heads off to find Trish and Darry.

The Creeper catches up and briefly being annoyed he couldn't smell Trish through a one sided mirror he breaks through the window and captures her and Darry. The Creeper smelled them unsure of who to take and a after a while he threw Trish away after finding she had nothing he wanted. He smelled Darry more and found he wanted Darry's eyes which had seen its lair.

Trish tries to reason with it, and attempts to give her life for her brother's. The Creeper appeared to have consider it but ultimately decides that Darry is a better choice than Trish and readied its wings to fly. 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 sound of Darry's scream are heard before they stopped as it goes deeper in the lair and the audience finally learns what the Creeper wanted: by sewing off the back of Darry's head, it has taken his eyes, leaving Darry's body an eyeless, motionless corpse tied up, with the Creeper looking through the eye holes, while "Jeepers Creepers" is playing. The Creeper is shown walking with a needle implying he is going to sew the back of Darry's head on.

In brief shot, his truck is shown driving down the road meaning he is going hunting for more victims.

Jeepers Creepers II
The story begins 4 days after the events of the first film. A farmer named Jack Taggart, Sr., and his son, Jack, Jr. are talking, while the farmer's younger son, Billy, wanders through the cornfield. One of the scarecrows in the field suddenly comes to life, grabs Billy and sprouts wings, disappearing into the sky with him, leaving both Jacks horrified and stunned.

Elsewhere, a school bus carrying a group of basketball champions and cheerleaders are on their way home after winning the championships, the boys chant a song, holding up a banner at the windows to show a passing truck. The cheerleaders sit and wish for the noise to stop, but just as they are chatting, one of the tires burst sending the bus to a violent stop. Upon inspection by Betty the Bus driver and the two chaperones/coaches, they find the tire has been completely destroyed. They comtemplate on what to do, asking for help over the radio, but when it becomes clear that there's no signal getting to the radio they decide to drive slowly on the remaining tire. Jack Sr meanwhile builds a homemade harpoon to set out on a personal mission for the Creeper.

Back on East 9, the bus is slowly making its way through the Highway. Scotty and Rhonda discuss the championship and how he is the one that got them into the Championships. Minxie who is asleep, falls into a dream, she sees Darry and Billy on the side of the road frantically warning them to turn back, that the Creepers coming for them. She notices the Creeper running through the cornfield ahead of the bus, and he tosses another shurikan into the remaining tire sending the bus onto the back rim, rendering it useless and unmovable. Betty tells them all to vacate whilst she and one of the coaches sets up flares, but on another inspection. She see's the same shurikan in the second tire, getting suspicious, she alerts one of the other coaches and suspects foul play, she then orders the confused teens back on the bus and to close the doors! One of the coaches is suddenly grabbed and lifted up into the sky suddenly, all the while the kids get back on the bus.

One of the students tries to reach someone on the radio but is unsuccesful. Betty, now paranoid is setting more flares whilst the Coach looks for the other Coach, Betty ligts the last flare and she also, is grabbed and taken away. The final coach is then taken away after standing at the entrance doors to the bus, the kids try to pull him down again but are unsuccesful.

When the kids lock themselves inside the bus, the Creeper makes his prescence known, lurking round the doors and climbing the windows smelling the fear from the teens. He then climbs atop the bus. Scotty orders Bucky to drive the bus to civilisation, but he says it will be impossible the back sitting on the rim. The Creeper then looks in from the back of the bus, picking the teens he wants, one by one!

Minxie falls unconscious, having another dream that later turns out to be the rest of her nightmare, where Darry's spirit tells her everything about the Creeper stating every 23 days it gets to eat before showing what the creeper did to him. Waking up, she tells her friends from what she had learned, forcing them to try some radioing for some help; however, some are skeptical, thinking Minxie has been doing drugs. The teens leave the bus to head for a nearby farm, believing that The Creeper is gone. They do not realize that The Creeper is just waiting for them. The Creeper chases the scared teens into a wide field, killing 2 of them. One of the teens, Bucky, returns to the bus with two others. Just as The Creeper attempts to grab him, the Taggarts, having tracked down the abandoned bus with help from Minxie, arrive and flash their car lights at the Creeper, forcing him to drop Bucky and as Jack, Sr. shines the light on the Creeper, the Creeper releases his wings. Jack, Sr. fires the harpoon through the Creeper, and the Creeper grabs the harpoon after it hits. The Creeper starts to pull the truck (as the harpoon is connected to the machine by a rope) until it throws the harpoon back at the Taggarts, who narrowly dodge the weapon. The Creeper then tries to fly through the bus, but Jack, Sr. places another harpoon in the machine and shoots the Creeper again. But the Creeper survives, and pulls the truck so hard that it flips over, although both Taggarts escape at the last moment.

Three teens, Izzy, Rhonda and Double D (the Creeper's target) find an abandoned truck sitting in the middle of the field, while its driver became another victim of the Creeper. The Creeper approaches as the three teens hijack the truck. As the Creeper chases the truck, Izzy pushes Rhonda out of the truck. Izzy, who's driving, then jumps out and runs away after crashing the truck into the Creeper, while the truck flips and is set ablaze. The Creeper loses its wings, right arm and left leg but he still pursues Double D, who is severely injured. As The Creeper is about to eat Double D, Jack, Sr., who managed to repair the harpoon machine, shoots The Creeper straight in the head. Severely injured, the Creeper is unable to defend himself as Jack, Sr. proceeds to use a spare harpoon to stab the Creeper continuously through the chest until he runs out of breath. At the same time, the Creeper apparently succumbs to his wounds. Minxie, the medium teenager, tells Jack, Sr. that the Creeper is not dead, but has gone into hibernation for another 23 years and will be back afterwards.

23 years later, kids have heard about the creature the farmer has killed and desire to see it. They pay their $5 to see the "attraction"; named "Bat Out of Hell". The teens look up to find the Creeper, with his body parts sewed back together, crucified to the wall as a tourist attraction. An elderly Jack, Sr. is seated by the harpoon gun, which is loaded and aimed directly at the beast's heart. One of the teenagers asks if he is waiting for something, and Jack, Sr. responds, "about three more days... give or take a day or two".

The movie ends with a close up of the crucified Creeper.

Jeepers Creepers III
Jeepers Creepers 3 was set to be released in 2013, and we were supposed to learn the history of the Creeper. In 2015 the film was officially announced, with it to go into production in 2016.

Plot
23 years after the events of the original film, Trisha Jenner who now has a teenage son named Darry (named after her late brother who was killed by the Creeper) has a recurring nightmare of her son suffering the same fate. So she sets out with Jack Taggart and Jack Taggart Jr. to end The Creeper's reign once and for all.

Jeepers Creepers IV
It has been said the Jeepers Creepers 3 script would follow onto a TV Series.

Power and Skills
The Creeper employs a variety of weapons in his pursuit for food. He commonly carries daggers and shurikens made from the flesh and bones of his victims (and, possibly, himself). He also uses a medieval battle axe in the first film, which may indicate that it has once lived some where else. The weapons he creates are shown to move of their own accord (or, perhaps, return to their master) in the second film, where a knife flies across a room under its own power, traveling through a leather lamp before embedding into a nearby wall. Later in the film, the same knife has been converted into a harpoon-like weapon to be used against the Creeper by allowing it to guide itself to its target.

The Truck
The Creeper also drives a very large, old-fashioned, rusted truck equipped with a cow catcher on the front, which he uses to transport bodies (dead or alive) to a cave underneath an old church through a sewer pipe where he sews his victims to the ceiling that it calls it's house of pain. He also uses his truck to scare potential victims. The license plate on his truck reads "BEATNGU", "Be Eating You"—commonly confused as "Beating You"--. The truck can attain unusually high speeds (at least 100MPH) despite its decrepit exterior.

Personality
In both films, the Creeper is shown to have a rather twisted and dishonorable personality. He seems to enjoy toying with his victims before killing them. By doing this he is not only able to amuse himself but it also works well in igniting more fear in his victims. However, once his time on earth nears its end, the Creeper can be ruthless, merciless, and vituperative, so he will continue to pursue his victims even when severely injured. In the first film the Creeper displayed more of a laid-back, almost human, personality. He even uses some of the little time he has on earth to make grotesque artwork from the bodies of his victims while listening to music. However, once his time draws to a close in the second film, the Creeper begins to put his full power to use. Instead of playing road games with his victims and blending into human society he cuts right to the chase and ruthlessly hunts down his victims stopping only when he wants to "pick them out".

Despite being mostly animal-like and seemingly incapable of speech, the Creeper does display human emotions and intelligence. He is shown to understand emotions such as amusement, anger, pain, and fear and at one brief moment it is hinted that he may understand compassion. When Trish begs him to take her instead of Darry the Creeper does actually listen to her and seems to give her offer some thought rather than just immediately flying away. Nonetheless, the Creeper shows no empathy for his victims and even goes so far as to turn their bodies into macabre art pieces which he then hangs on his wall like a hunting trophy. Despite being hundreds of years old the Creeper seems to possess a very advanced understanding of modern human technology, weapons, and anatomy. He is able to drive a truck with no difficulty at all and has even found a way to make it travel at speeds that it normally would not be capable of. He also seems to understand the process of taxidermy as he is able keep human bodies perfectly preserved for centuries and even uses left-over body parts to craft his weapons.

The Creeper is also shown to be incredibly shrewd, conniving, manipulative, and calculating when pursing his victims. He does not go full force on his victims unless they prove to be a challenge or if his time is short. Instead, he seems to prefer studying his victims from a distance by either donning a disguise or disabling their vehicles. By doing this he can decide which ones would be the best candidates for him to pursue and strategically figure out how to catch them with the least difficulty. It is possible that he took out the adults on the bus in the second film first, since they could calm, or at least anger the teenagers enough that their fear would be drowned out.

Another strange thing to add is that, despite being somewhat heartless and evil, the Creeper does not seem to kill people indiscriminately, only going after the people he chooses, and sparing the rest. This might be due to the fact that he does not have time to do so or that he simply doesn't like to kill unnecessarily. This last idea, although less probable, can indicate that he does not kill people out of pleasure, but out of necessity, despite showing a degree of amusement when hunting his victims.

The Creeper does not seem to discriminate between the victims he chooses going so far as killing children in order to continue surviving. An evidence of this is the fact that there were missing children posters displayed in the Poho police department, to which we can assume the Creeper is responsible for.

According to Jezelle from the first film, once the Creeper has the scent of something it likes, it can't stop hunting its prey down until it gets what it came for.

According to Darry from the second film, the Creeper knows no mercy and consumes everything.

Trivia

 * The Creeper shares a similarity to the Cy-Bugs from Disney's 52nd full-length animated feature film, Wreck-It Ralph. Whatever they eat, it becomes a part of them.
 * The Creeper also resembles Pennywise: both pass a long dormant period of several years, and they both need to terrorize their victims before eating them.