The Guy Who Played The Creeper Cleans Up Well, Don't You Think? (The Best Actual Horror Movie Monsters, 4)

Since, this week, the public largely rejected an ill-defined horror movie monster that simultaneously embodied every horror-movie cliche while also making no sense (why would pulling off the "BFF" necklace take away the demon's power, I wonder?), I thought I'd again help everyone remember just what it takes to be an Actual Best Horror Movie Monster, by presenting, without much ado, the Fourth Best Actual Horror Movie Monster:

The Jeeper Creeper,

Or whatever he was called. Whatever it was, it was amazingly, brilliantly, scary, and it was that because (a) it had big leathery wings and also drove a rusty truck and wore a hat, (b) it was building a person out of parts of other people, and then sewing the used up people into a big mosaic, and (c) it avoided every single horror movie cliche in one fell swoop -- a fell swoop being what the Jeeper Creeper used to get people.

The Jeeper Creeper had no backstory, beyond Cat Lady saying it's been around forever. There was:

-- no television news show setting out exposition,

-- no professor beginning the movie with a lecture about how we've discovered every possible kind of creature and therefore there are no new creatures left in the world to be identified, after which the main female character says "How can you be sure?" and leaves class only to later realize that the Jeeper Creeper is just what she was sure existed, thereby ironically proving the professor blah blah blah pleh.

-- no scene in which the main characters try desperately to research this thing online or in print, coming up with a half-baked plan based on dusty old books/an obscure website/A Milton-Bradley game.

There was just a truck-drivin' bat-thing that wanted to listen to oldies' music, eat people, and use their body parts for his outsider art.

True story: the night I watched Jeepers Creepers, by myself in our house, I didn't want to turn off the lights before going to bed, and then had such trouble falling asleep that eventually I had to watch Disney's Hercules just to clear my mind. Compare that to this weekend, when for most of the latter part of Jennifer's Body, I was preoccupied with wondering whether it would seem cheap to ask for a refill of my popcorn on the way out.

Also, this is the guy who played The Creeper.
He also played "Bald Cop" in that movie. But you know what the greatest part in that movie was? Officer With Hole In Chest. If I were an actor, I would love to have that on my resume. Imagine the conversation starters:

Me (In alternate world where I'm an actor:) Hey, baby, can I buy you a drink?

Her: Don't I know you from somewhere?

Me: Maybe. I played "Officer With Hole In Chest" in the movies. And not just one movie, either -- there was a whole series of movies, like Officer With Hole In Chest 2: Electric Boogaloo, and Officer With Hole In Chest Vs. Predator.

Her: No, it's not that. Wait a minute... you're the guy from my apartment complex who took all my clothes out of the dryer and then put his clothes in. And you threw my clothes in the garbage!

Me: Sorry. The Fast Officer With The Furious Hole In Chest didn't actually pay that well.

Yeah. That's the dream.