Despite the supernatural elements, Jeepers Creepers‘ true story sets aspects of the movie in reality. The film, written and directed by Victor Salva and executive produced by the legendary Francis Ford Coppola, features then-starlets Justin Long and Gina Philips as sibling duo Darry and Trish Jenner who become the targets of a demonic villain known simply as “the Creeper” after witnessing the monster loading bodies into a truck. They are then exposed to the mythology of the terrifying creature who hunts every 23 years, taking various body parts from its victims.
The film’s savage ending, in which the back of Darry’s head and eyes are removed, sets up important “Creeper” canon and ensures several equally popular Jeepers Creepers sequels. Despite the modest budget, the movie became a surprise hit at the box office and continued to develop a strong following on video, spawning two Jeepers Creepers sequels as well as a reboot in 2022. While certain elements can clearly be dismissed as supernatural horror, there are aspects of the Creeper that were taken from a chilling true-crime story, and — disturbingly — some parts of Jeepers Creepers are real.
Is Jeepers Creepers Real?
How Killer Dennis DePue Influenced Jeepers Creepers
While The Creeper’s supernatural background and horrific appearance is, of course, a work of fiction, much of Jeepers Creepers‘ central plot is grounded in reality. The true elements of Jeepers Creepers are derived from a series of Michigan-based events in the summer of 1990, with the Jenners’ chance meeting with The Creeper drawing eerie parallels to the crimes of Dennis DePue. The disposal of DuePue’s wife’s body coupled with his subsequent, protracted manhunt are clear influences on the final Jeepers Creepers backstory.
In 1990, Michigan resident Dennis DePue was the target of a police manhunt after he murdered his wife and disposed of her body behind an abandoned schoolhouse. Different elements of the case were added to the fictionalized narrative of Salva’s story, and while the movie is still too strange to be considered close to a real account, the DePue case certainly leaves an impression on the Jeepers Creepers franchise.
Ray and Marie Thornton, a brother and sister, (like Darry and Trish) were eyewitnesses who saw DePue dumping his wife’s carcass, with their sworn testimony the primary source material for Jeepers Creepers’ true crime-based story. As in Jeepers Creepers, the real Thorntons stated they saw DePue disposing of a body before he turned and noticed them in their car. They testify DePue then proceeded to tail them in his van for several miles, mirroring the taut chase scene in Jeepers Creepers.
Dennis DePue’s real crimes do not deserve to be memorialized, with the heinous murder of his wife spawning a manhunt that would ultimately end in DePue’s death.
A 1991 episode of Unsolved Mysteries covers the DePue case in great detail, with the piece-by-piece re-enactment of the Thorntons’ story presenting something eerily similar to the corresponding Jeepers Creepers scenes. Dennis DePue’s real crimes do not deserve to be memorialized, with the heinous murder of his wife spawning a manhunt that would ultimately end in DePue’s death.
Perhaps then, this is why Salva added several fictional elements to the Jeepers Creepers movie, reimagining DePue’s nefarious aura as The Creeper: a terrifying winged creature described by movie residents as a “bat out of hell“. While the truth behind the film remains a dark tale of infidelity and evil rationale, Jeepers Creepers blends these wholly human elements into a supernatural story that retains the creeping chill of the true crime on which it was built.
The Crimes Of Jeepers Creepers Director Victor Salva Give It An Uncomfortable Legacy
The Jeepers Creepers True Story Isn’t The Only Shocking Part Of Its History
Though the true story that partially inspired Jeepers Creepers adds to the terror of what is on-screen, there are some disturbing real-life incidents surrounding the movie that give it an uncomfortable legacy.
Though Salva made other movies after being released from prison,
Jeepers Creepers
was the hit that allowed him to maintain a Hollywood career.
In 1988, Director Victor Salva was convicted of sexual misconduct in a case involving one of the underage stars of his movie Clownhouse. Though Salva made other movies after being released from prison, Jeepers Creepers was the hit that allowed him to maintain a Hollywood career. This sits uneasily with many people who view Salva’s ability to continue working as a director as problematic considering he used that position to commit his crimes in the first place.
Allowing the Jeepers Creepers franchise to continue was seen as a way of enabling Salva and excusing his past crimes. The controversy of Jeepers Creepers 3 intensified as knowledge of Salva’s past became more well-known. To add to the uncomfortable nature of Salva’s association with the franchise, Jeepers Creepers 3 also included a character joking about child abuse, a moment made all the more disturbing knowing Salva himself wrote the movie. Though Jeepers Creepers: Reborn attempted to reboot the franchise without Salva’s involvement, it could be tainted beyond saving at this point.
One True Crime Inspired Several Horror Movies
The Jeepers Creepers True Story Isn’t The Only Crime To Inspire A Horror Movie
It’s no secret that there are plenty of classic horror movies inspired by disturbing, real-life crimes. One notable example of this is the infamous story of murderer Ed Gein, a Wisconsin native who was finally arrested in 1957. When police searched his farm, evidence of grisly, heinous crimes was discovered — including human skin pulled over lampshades and furniture, collections of body parts, and the body of a woman who was field-dressed like a deer.
Given this, it makes sense that there are many horror movies inspired by serial killer Ed Gein, but the carnage and deviance don’t stop there. In addition to multiple confirmed and suspected kills, Gein also confessed to having illegally exhumed bodies from cemeteries for his nefarious purposes and is even reported to have created a suit of women’s skin after his mother’s death, so he could dress up like her.
These shocking crimes inspired multiple classic horror movies, such as 1991’s Silence Of The Lambs, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise, as well as Alfred Hitchcock’s groundbreaking 1960 thriller Psycho. All the films’ protagonists are clearly based, in part, on different aspects of Gein’s crimes.
Other Iconic Horror Movies Inspired By True Stories
The Conjuring Franchise And Wes Craven Pull Inspiration From True Stories
The horror genre is prolific with a lot of subgenres, and some of the most iconic movies to make up those subgenres have gone on to spawn sequels and remakes, leaving a legacy, or even still maintaining years later, just like Jeepers Creepers. Some of those iconic movies are also inspired by true stories.
The Conjuring franchise is expansive, including the original Conjuring movie as well as those about The Nun and Annabelle. All of the movies in the franchise are inspired by the work of Ed and Lorraine Warren, real-life occultists. While some have insisted that the Warrens are scam artists, others would call them to investigate real supernatural occurrences, leading to the inspiration for the movies starring Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson. Artifacts in their home museum have inspired the spin-off movies in the Annabelle series.
Many of iconic horror director Wes Craven’s projects have also been inspired by real stories, like The Hills Have Eyes. The 1977 movie and its less successful sequel is about a family terrorized by cannibals while on vacation. They discover that the cannibals have been operating for what seems like decades. That story is inspired by a 16th-century Scottish family. The Scottish lore is that a family led by Sawney Bean killed thousands of people and cannibalized them, though some doubt the validity of the legend.
He was afraid that if he slept, the thing chasing him would get him, so he tried to stay awake for days at a time.
A Nightmare on Elm Street made an entire generation of kids afraid to fall asleep. Craven got the idea for that movie from a real-life story as well. Craven told Cinemablend that he was actually inspired by the story of a young boy whose family moved to the United States from Southeast Asia as refugees. The boy had nightmares about someone chasing him every night after they moved. Craven explained, “He was afraid that if he slept, the thing chasing him would get him, so he tried to stay awake for days at a time.”
Though his family could usually rouse him from those nightmares, one night, he died in his sleep after his family heard him scream. That became the basis for Freddy Kreuger chasing teenagers in their dreams, and then, in the real world.
More surprising than either of those is that the iconic Child’s Play franchise is actually inspired by the “most haunted doll” in the world. In the early 1900s, a young boy in Key West was gifted a doll by his grandfather. According to family stories, Robert Eugene Otto blamed childhood mishaps on the doll, and when he went away to study art, the doll was supposedly stored in the family home, but disappeared, only to reappear when Otto and his wife moved into the family home.
Key West residents keep the doll on display now and say that Robert the doll is responsible for job loss, broken limbs, and even car accidents if he’s not treated with respect. The doll has inspired other movies, including a 2016 film named Robert.
Another famous horror movie featuring material based on a true story is 1973’s The Exorcist, which led to sequels of its own. The film’s demonic possession and subsequent exorcism attempts mirror the story of Ronald Hunkeler (who was formerly referred to as “Roland Doe” by the press until his name was revealed decades later). At the time of his exorcism in 1949, Hunkeler was 14 years old and allegedly experienced a possession somewhat similar to the film’s fictional character of young Regan MacNeil.
As all the aforementioned films (and many, many more) prove, Jeepers Creepers certainly isn’t the only horror movie to be loosely based on a true story.
Are The Jeepers Creepers Sequels Also Inspired By True Stories?
How Jeepers Creepers 2 & 3 Moved Away From Its True Story Roots
There were real-life elements that inspired the first Jeepers Creepers movie, but that doesn’t appear to be the case with the sequels. Jeepers Creepers 2 was released in 2003 and took place days after the events of the first movie. It follows the students on a high school trip who become stranded on the side of the desolate country road and are preyed upon by the Creeper. Jeepers Creepers 3 was released in 2017 and technically serves as a prequel to the second movie, as it takes place the day after the original 2001 movie.
The sequels did not draw on any known true stories, and leaned more heavily into the supernatural aspects of The Creeper. The sequels explored the mythology, including that The Creeper is an ancient being, while also revealing that its victims can reach out to others from beyond the grave to deliver warnings about his coming. In 2022, the Jeepers Creepers franchise was rebooted with Jeepers Creepers: Reborn which opens with a similar scene as in the original of a couple witnessing The Creeper dropping a body down a pipe behind a church, bringing it back to Dennis DePue’s real crimes.
How The True Story Differs From The Movie
The Supernatural Elements Make Jeepers Creepers A Very Loose Telling Of The True Story
While the notion of Jeepers Creepers being a true story adds another element of horror to it all, the real story of Dennis DePue is quite different from what is seen in the movie. That should come as no surprise to those who have watched the film, as Jeepers Creepers quickly turns from an unsettling thriller about a pair of killers being hunted by a supposed killer to a supernatural horror movie about an ancient demon.
The idea of DePue disposing of a body and then pursuing the eyewitnesses in his car appears to be where the inspiration for Jeepers Creepers comes from, but the similarities stop there. For instance, the movie has the siblings return to the scene of the crime to see what the Creeper was disposing of, only to find a cave filled with his countless victims from over the years plastered to the wall in a twisted mural. This was not part of the Dennis DePue story as his wife was the only victim of his crimes.
The movie takes the idea of a killer caught in the act and pursuing the innocent people who happen to see him. However, by adding in the supernatural element, Jeepers Creepers takes the already chilling idea to another level. It poses the question, what if this killer that was pursuing them was something that simply could not be stopped? So while the true story only serves as a small inspiration for the overall story, it helps to kick Jeepers Creepers off on a scary note.
Stream
Jeepers Creepers
on Amazon Prime Video.
