The Creeper (Jeepers Creepers)

Jeepers Creepers character
File:Creeperheadshot.jpg
The Creeper
Race:	Unknown
Gender:	Male
Height:	6'0" (approximately)
Weight:	160-185 lbs.
Sleep/Awaken	23rd Springs - 23 Days
Location	Poho County, Florida
Death Toll	300 confirmed dead
Main Song	"Jeepers Creepers"
Film(s)	Jeepers Creepers Jeepers Creepers II

The Creeper is a demon, character and the main antagonist in the 2001 horror film Jeepers Creepers and its 2003 sequel Jeepers Creepers II. He is an ancient demon who feeds on human beings for twenty-three days every twenty-third Spring. In all but one of his appearances, he is played by Jonathan Breck.

Appearance

It is said that the Creeper is an ancient demon or a grasshopper. To disguise 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 appears barefoot, revealing slightly bird-like talons which are most likely used for picking up his victims. 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. These seem to belong to a sort of symbiotic animal that enslaves the human body parts of the Creeper, implying the actual 'creeper' is on its back. He also sports a huge pair of bat-like wings on his back, which fold up tightly enough that they are completely unnoticeable underneath his coat. He also has a very large left toe, and has hair between his head and the top of his neck. Lastly, the Creeper drives a forboding old truck with a license plate that reads BEATNGU (be eating you). When his own head is too damaged, he must devour another, when he does this, he gains similar facial characteristics of the person he gained his head from.

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 human for his own bidding. He then either uses the remaining body parts as tools for weapons or later nourishment for his survival. In Jeepers Creepers II, the Creeper uses an extravagantly sharp tool to easily puncture very thick tires on a school bus. It is not clear where the Creeper sleeps or hibernates during his 23 years of dormancy. In the first Jeepers Creepers, the Creeper has his own little "shack" of victims, shown at the end of the movie. This is assumed to be where he sleeps. Another theory, presented in Jeepers Creepers II, is that the Creeper sleeps underground so that he is not found while asleep.

Storyline

Jeepers Creepers

The story centers around two main characters, Darry Jenner and his sister Trish. The story begins when they are heading across country on their way home from spring break. As they are talking in the car they pass by an abandoned church. They look over and see what looks like a man dumping a large bag down a pipe. The pipe appears to continue underground. The man (or Creeper) then sees them and proceeds to run them off the road with his old, dilapidated truck.

The Jenners, still unharmed, go back to the church to inspect the pipe. Hesitantly, Trish helps Darry get a better look. Upon inspecting the pipe, Darry gets spooked by mice and falls into the pipe where he lands in a what looks like a basement. Once there he discovers a man with no insides and his stomach sewn shut. He also finds dozens of bodies on the ground, on the wall and on the ceiling which he later dubs "Some psycho version of the Sistene Chapel."

After escaping the basement, he reunites with Trish, and the two of them drive off to seek help at a gas station. While their car is out at the pumps, "The Creeper" comes and ruffles through Darry's clothes. Later on in the story, they find out and attempt to get a fingerprint of him. However, this proves impossible as they discover the fingerprint is all dead skin. While in the gas station, a woman (the psychic) calls Darry and tells him if he hears a song about Jeepers Creepers, he should run. The police on the scene escort the Jenners back to the church, attempting to prove that nothing is wrong.

They proceed to the church with the police car following. Darry hears the song and tells Trish, meanwhile they notice nothing of what's going on behind them in the police car. The Creeper lands on the roof and pulls the female officer out of the window. Then the Creeper pulls the male officer out of the drivers seat through roof. The Creeper pulls the man up to his shoulders and decapitates him with axe-like tool.

Darry and Trish, arriving at the church are again thwarted, when they see the church is burnt down-by what is implied to be "The Creeper". The Creeper then throws the man's head on the hood of the Jenners car, who skid to a halt. They escape as he eats the tongue out of the policeman and loads his body in his truck. The Jenners keep driving until they decide to stop at the house of a woman who is suspicious of them,telling them she doesn't have a phone, so that they won't report her multitude of cats. She then sees The Creeper in her field and threatens to shoot at him. He moves too quickly to be shot and breaks into her house where the Jenner's hear cats yelping and screaming and then, after the Cat Lady goes back inside, some gun shots. They see her through her window but they don't know that the Creeper is behind her holding her up by the neck. He then throws her across the room and thats when the Jenners find out that it's the Creeper that's there so they get in their car and attempt to run him over. He evades their attempts twice, but on the third try Trish clips him with the car. Trish begins to methodically back up and run over the Creeper multiple times. Then the Creeper's wing rises up so you know that he's still alive. They go to a police station where the psychic (a woman named Jezelle) that called them at the diner finds them and tells them that she saw Darry and Trish in the basement of the church, and at the cat woman's house, and finally that one of them is going to die screaming in the dark while "Jeepers Creepers" plays in the background, although it is inferred that she has actually seen many more details. Then the Creeper turns off the power and the guards go downstairs to find out that some inmates are sleeping and some are wide awake afraid of one cell farther down the line of cells. The guards see that the Creeper has busted through the bars and is eating the leg of a man. A minor chase insues, with Darry surmising that Jezelle know which one of them is going to die hearing "Jeepers Creepers" play. He asks her which one of them it is, and Jezelle looks towards Trish frightened, and both of the siblings believe she means Trish is going to die. Darry yells at Jezelle to tell him whether or not her dreams (how she gets her visions) are ever wrong, to which she only replies "You don't understand," over and over again. The Creeper finds them and Darry and Trish run upstairs to a holding room, as Jezelle prepares to be killed. However, the Creeper merely sniffs at her and leaves her be, curiously. The Creeper finds the siblings in the holding room and takes Darry hostage. Trish screams and tries to barter with the Creepr for it to take her instead, since she believes that it is she who is destined to die. Instead, Darry gets pulled through a window by the Creeper who flies away with Darry in his grasp. We see later that Trish gets picked up by her parents at the Police station, while Darry is screaming in the basement of what appears to be some sort of factory, as "Jeepers Creepers" plays. His screams cease, and we see that the Creeper has torn out his eyes, and that the Creeper's once-milky-blue eyes are now the same color as Darry's.

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.

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 very sharp shuriken-like homemade blades of bone. 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 takes to ingesting the head of one pupil after being impaled through the eye with a javelin.

As the students escape from the bus, the Creeper chases and kills two more of them until he encounters his old enemies Jack Taggart and his son Jack Taggart Jr. Taggart Sr. 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, though the Taggarts manage to escape in time.

The Creeper then turns his attention to the remaining three teenagers and flies after them as they attempt to escape the East 9 in a crashed truck-the others either escaped in time or were picked off one by one). The Creeper nearly catches one of them when the driver plays a dangerous trick and sends the Creeper flying straight through his 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 upward, right into the path of Taggart's harpoon cannon. Taggart fires the harpoon straight through the Creeper's head, nailing him to the ground.

To avenge his son's death, Taggart gets another harpoon and repeatedly stabs the Creeper in the stomach and in the heart until the Creeper ceases to breathe. Taggart then stabs the Creeper in the head with the harpoon; the Creeper lets out a pain-filled screech. One of the teenagers claims that the Creeper is not dead, but its 23-day run ends. Determined to find out for himself, Taggart takes the Creeper's remains and hangs him up in his shed as a "Bat out of Hell" sideshow for the next twenty-three years.

At the end of the the Creeper's dormancy period, an old Taggart is seen sitting in the shed near his harpoon machine, with the harpoon pointing straight at the hung Creeper's heart, waiting for him to wake up.

It is believed that the creature may have been summoned, which is hinted at in the first movie when you see the table (located in a church basement) that has a representation of the creature on it.

Abilities

The Creeper has the unique ability to regenerate his own version of whatever body part he devours. He has allegedly survived throughout the ages since Biblical times using this ability, replenishing his 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.

The Creeper appears to be some sort of chimera. Most of his body is of human origin, but the wings, and a sort of clawed and webbed structure on the back of his head actually seem to be a non-vertebrate animal that controls the human body parts. The non-human section does not seem to be from any terrestrial line of evolution. The clawed/webbed structure can also flare out in a threatening display.

The Creeper will eat humans to absorb replacement body parts when his own are too damaged for further use.

Physiologically, the Creeper is a 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 (carrying 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. In the second film it is revealed that to 'smell fear', the Creeper uses a third nostril that slits down his nose.

The Creeper has seemingly advanced speed and immense strength. He is strong enough to tear apart automobile frames and rip 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. The Creeper is not known to talk, but presumably has that ability, as he can whistle well, although not needing it to communicate with the teens on the bus when he wanted them to move to show in whom he was interested.

During the first film, it is also revealed that he can climb on walls like a spider. In the second film he also appears to climb up the side of the school bus using this ability, though it it has never been confirmed.

Though it is never revealed how he developed these skills amidst his hibernation cycle, the Creeper is also well-versed in physical combat (including using throwing and melee weapons), stealth, stitching, driving and mechanics. He also has at least a crude but working knowledge of human biology.

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 or his old feet talons (at least one is seen to sport a belly button, also in Jeepers Creepers at the end Darry is seen naked, and a rose tattoo is seen on his belly button, and the shuriken in the second movie sported that same design, showing what The Creeper may have used the rest of Darry's body for). He also has a foreboding looking knife, found by Jack Taggart, Jr. On its handle there is a person that appears to be chained to a wall, screaming. On the other side, there is a screaming child in a cornfield and a demonic creature in flight. When Jack Taggart, Sr. sees this, the knife flies out of his hands and into a nearby wall, destroying a lamp. For some unknown reason this knife is possessed with the ability of finding organinc flesh or maybe just skin. It hit the wall going through the lamp shade due to its being made out of leather. Later on that same knife is placed as the tip of the harpoon that is used to hunt down the Creeper, after being impaled with it, the creeper removes the spear form his body and throws it back at the truck nearly impaleing Jack Jr. It's never said, but it is implied that it continued on is direct path whitout a change in course when Jack Jr. moves due to the spears making contack with the flice of his jacket (flice is backed by leather) The Creeper also drives a very large, grotesque looking delivery truck (sporting the license plate "B-E-A-T-N-G-U" [likely read as B-EATING-U]) which 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.