YMMV / Jeepers Creepers

• Base-Breaking Character: Trish has some fans for her Big Sister Instinct and Genre Savvy moments but is viewed as The Scrappy by others for her treatment of Jezelle, unless said fans dislike Jezelle herself for her unexplained psychic presence.
• Complete Monster: The Creeper is an ancient monster and horrific sadist who feasts on others to prolong his life. As revealed in the comics, the Creeper's evil goes back millennia, demanding Human Sacrifice and having wiped out the Roanoke colony. The Creeper relishes tormenting its victims physically or mentally, and shows no care at its actions once accidentally causing an entire town to be destroyed. In present, the Creeper takes its victims and sews them into a hideous patchwork in its lair that it dubs the House of Pain, with some victims still alive when they join the tableau of hundreds of victims. The Creeper regularly slaughters all in its path, target or not, and demonstrates utter sadistic relish in every evil it commits.
• Evil Is Cool: The Creeper has amassed quite the fanbase for itself, becoming something of a modern-day horror icon. Of course, given the unfortunate Real Life context that the character can be seen as embodying, this has been downplayed.
• First Installment Wins: The original is generally seen as being much creepier than the sequel due to the lighting, atmosphere and other horror elements. The fact that the Creeper is shown more in the sequel also kills the scary factor somewhat. There are also other factors that make the sequel seem more like a generic teen horror film than the previous film. However, as mentioned on the sequel's page, it does have its fans. As for the third film and especially Reborn, well... the less said, the better.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • "You know that is you in forty years." Darry, sadly, does not get to live that long.
  • Many fans have made note of an uncomfortable parallel between the Creeper and the film's director, Victor Salva, who is now a convicted child molester, meaning that much like the Creeper, he is a monster who preys on young people.
• I Am Not Shazam: Believe it or not, there are actually people who refer to the Creeper as "Jeepers Creepers."
• Jerkass Woobie: Trish can be harsh towards Jezebel but is implied to have just gotten out of an abusive relationship, has to go through a lot of close calls against the Creeper and sees the monster take her beloved brother.
• Moral Event Horizon: The Creeper at first looks like a standard predator who only eats to survive. Then we see what it does to the bodies of its victims. There was certainly no need to do this. That was just for sick sadism.
• Nausea Fuel: The gulping sounds the Creeper makes when he's swallowing something.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: People who haven't heard of these films before have mostly discovered the series' existence through the fact that director Victor Salva is a convicted child molester. Further increasing its infamy is various creators such as Dead Meat bringing up his status to light as the main reason they won't talk (or even in James' case, make a Kill Count video) about the series, as they don't want to give the man any kind of support or even their money. In fact, James has actually said that he'll give a "reprieve" in that he'll eventually cover the films... when the man is dead.
• Poor Man's Substitute: It's pretty obvious the film's music composer Bennett Salvay is trying to emulate Danny Elfman and Shirley Walker in his score.
• Special Effects Failure: The Impala is supposed to be a stick shift (as evident in all interior shots). You can clearly see the real transmission (a steering wheel-mounted automatic) in several exterior shots.
  • There's a zipper visible on the back of the Creeper in one scene.
  • The officer's head is framed in shadow after the decapitation, and for good reason - it's a very obvious prop.
• Squick: Many moments, but the Creeper pulling the tongue out of a decapitated head with his teeth definitely qualifies.
• The Woobie: Darry and Jezelle from the first film, and Minxie, Rhonda, Bucky and Jack Sr. from the second film.
  • The dying boy, whom Darry discovers in the pit, who is unable to speak to Darry, and has a visible scar from where the Creeper ate him.

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