Jeepers Creepers (Exclusive Series)

Initial release date: August 31, 2001

Studios: United Artists/MGM

Tagline: Fear takes a road trip

He’s watching … He’s waiting … He’s hungry

Plot: After making a horrific discovery in the basement of an old abandoned church, Trish and her brother Darry watch their routine road trip home from college turn into a heart-stopping face for their lives. They find themselves the chosen prey of an indestructible force that relentlessly pursues them and gives a new and chilling message to the old song “Jeepers Creepers.”

Cast

Gina Philips (Jeepers Creepers 3) - Trisha

Justin Long (Netflix’s F Is For Family) - Darry

Jonathan Beck (Jeepers Creepers 3) - The Creeper

Patricia Belcher (Kajillionaire) - Jezelle Gay Hartman

Brandon Smith (Jeepers Creepers 3) - Sgt. Davis Tubbs

Writer/director: Victor Salva

Rated R for terror violence/gore, language and brief nudity (90 minutes)

The 2001 monster feature ‘Jeepers Creepers’ is a good old fashioned monster flick.

During the first half of the movie, there are many tense moments and plenty of chills. There are quite a few suspenseful moments that will definitely send those chills down your spine. A good portion of the suspense comes into play during the old church sequence where the brother investigates what the Creeper was hiding near the church. That entire sequence really stands out and is really eerie.

The second half is where you see what the Creeper actually is and the creature feature part of the movie starts. At this point, the creepiness and the scares really kick it up a notch. The practical effects the filmmakers used for the Creeper are really awesome and they don’t use a whole lot of CGI. The ending of ‘Jeepers Creepers’ really gets crazy and offers up plenty more scares.

You can rent the first ‘Jeepers Creepers’ online via YouTube, Google Play and VuduFandango for $3.99.

FYI - This creature feature turned 20 this year!!

Here are some interesting tidbits about ‘Jeepers Creepers’:

• The Creeper’s single line of dialogue was cut from the film.

• At the time of its release this was the highest grossing film to ever be released during Labor Day weekend. The record would subsequently be broken by its 2003 sequel.

• The original title was ‘Here Comes the Boogeyman.’

• Justin Long and Gina Phillips said that the screenplay was so scary and terrifying that they had to put it down after reading the first twenty pages or so and come back to it hours later.

• The church above the Creepers lair was a real abandoned church that, after the movie’s success, became a tourist attraction until in a life imitates art moment it mysteriously burnt down a few years ago.

• The writer’s original script also featured a twenty page third act which was eventually cut from the film. In it, Darry drives the Creeper’s truck into a train, unsuccessfully sacrificing himself in an attempt to kill the Creeper. Up to the start of filming, the entire sequence had been story-boarded in preparation for the shoot, but due to a budget cut of $1 million prior to filming, the entire scene and those leading up to it had to be removed and rewritten.

• Some scenes cut from the script were eventually used in its first sequel, ‘Jeepers Creepers 2.’

• In its original release, ‘Jeepers Creepers’ grossed $37.9 million in the US and Canada and $21.3 million in other countries for a worldwide total of $59.2 million.

• The entire franchise consists of two sequels - ‘Jeepers Creepers 2’ and ‘Jeepers Creepers 3’ - and a sequel currently in production - ‘Jeepers Creepers: Reborn.’ The upcoming fourth movie serves as a “restart” of the series after the dismal results of the third movie.

https://youtu.be/5T7TFIOZ2xU