Jeepers Creepers! That's Not Human

I chose to write about the monster from Jeepers Creepers for my first paper because it is the only monster that has kept me from sleeping for weeks.  I watched the movie when I was in sixth grade and was terrified.

The monster from the movie Jeepers Creepers is a very frightening creature.  It has many monstrous characteristics that compare to the theses presented in Monster Theory by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen.  The three characteristics most prominent are the monster always escapes, the monster is the harbinger of category crisis, and the monster dwells at the gates of difference.  I will apply the three theses above to the monster from the movie Jeepers Creepers in detail.

The first thesis represented by this monster is that it always escapes.  There are many times throughout the movie that the characters think the monster is dead, but alas, it is not.  The monster reappears many times after a mortal would certainly have not survived.  The monster survives the whole movie, comes back in a sequel, and a recently announced trilogy.

Along with never dying, the monster is a harbinger of category crisis and dwells at the gates of difference.  These two characteristics overlap quite a bit; therefore, they will be discussed together.  The monster is neither human nor animal.  It is hunts once every 23 years for 23 days of spring.  This clearly defies all mortal characteristics.  The monster can track its prey by smelling their dirty laundry.  This is not something a human can do, but possibly an animal.  The monster can also jump on top of houses and break through a roof, which is not a human characteristic by any means.  The monster is not only different in the ways listed above, but also by its appearance.  The monster does not look human.  It looks like something out of a nightmare.  It drives a car that is different than most cars, its very old but very fast.  The monster also differs from social norms by preforming immoral acts of killing and harming people.

All of these characteristics of monsters are similar to the characteristics I wrote about in my first paper.  I did discuss that monsters are horrifying because they usually preform their terrifying acts in the dark, which makes them even scarier.