Every Jeepers Creepers Movie, Ranked (2024)

There have been four Jeepers Creepers movies throughout the franchise, which vary wildly from brilliant to incredibly poor. The series started with Victor Salva's iconic original in 2001 and has since garnered two sequels and a reboot. While Jeepers Creepers fostered a cult following, the subsequent installments have had less success.

The Jeepers Creepers franchise depicts a monstrous humanoid creature known as the Creeper. The Creeper awakens every 23 years and has 23 days to harvest enough human flesh to sustain him through his hibernation. All four Jeepers Creepers movies are available to watch, but some are definitely more worth viewing than others.

4 Jeepers Creepers: Reborn

See Also

Jeepers Creepers: Reborn | Rotten TomatoesJeepers Creepers | Rotten Tomatoes‘Jeepers Creepers: Reborn’: Release Date, Trailer & Everything You Need to Know About the Horror RebootJeepers Creepers: Reborn Movie Review

The 2022 reboot, Jeepers Creepers: Reborn is hailed as one of the worst movies ever made, and is certainly the weakest in the Jeepers Creepers franchise. It holds an impressive 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes and was critically derided upon its release. It is the first Jeepers Creepers movie without creator Victor Salva, or original Creeper actor, Jonathan Breck. As a result, Jeepers Creepers: Reborn is a fairly weak creature feature, which truly demonstrates that the right performer needs to be under the mask. The Creeper in Jeepers Creepers: Reborn is completely devoid of personality, and lacks the slow reveal of his monstrosity which garnered the original its popularity.

As a result, the Creeper becomes more akin to a slasher villain, with audiences patiently waiting, and fully expecting, him to slaughter the entire cast. Indeed, the plot itself also relegates the Creeper to the status of a cheap slasher villain. Jeepers Creepers: Reborn centers on a young couple attending a horror festival, who enter an escape room and are subsequently hunted by the Creeper. It feels like a tired rehash of several other escape room/theme park horror movies, and proffers very few scares or any original interpretation of the original Jeepers Creepers.

Arguably, the movie's highlight is the opening sequence. Though this is a complete recreation of Jeepers Creepers' first act, only substantially weaker. Additionally, Jeepers Creepers: Reborn uses an unrecognizably inferior rendition of the song, "Jeepers Creepers," which makes the reboot even more detached from the original's brilliant and horrifying core. Overall, Jeepers Creepers: Reborn is the weakest in the franchise by far.

3 Jeepers Creepers 3

Jeepers Creepers 3 was also critically panned and went somewhat unnoticed by audiences. Arguably, the biggest flaws in Jeepers Creepers 3 were due to the substantially slimmer budget than was enjoyed by Jeepers Creepers and Jeepers Creepers 2. Less experienced actors and cheap special effects lend Jeepers Creepers 3 and made-for-TV tone which is hard to ignore. Despite this, Jeepers Creepers 3 does a great job of expanding the origins of the Jeepers Creepers monster and has substantially more plot than Jeepers Creepers: Reborn​​​​​.

Jeepers Creepers 3 is set between the first two Jeepers Creepers films, exploring the Creeper's actions in the same 23-day period as the earlier movies. Commencing the narrative the day after the first Jeepers Creepers, Jeepers Creepers 3 depicts several relatives of Creeper victims attempting to defeat the creature. Unfortunately, any peril is undermined greatly by the knowledge that the Creeper must survive, as he would terrorize a bus of high school children in the next movie in the timeline, Jeepers Creepers 2.

Jeepers Creepers 3 was marred by controversy even before its release - which may have contributed to the rather measly budget compared to the earlier movies. Despite this, Jeepers Creepers 3 enjoys the final performance of Jonathan Breck as the Creeper, who maintains the monster's charismatic on-screen presence, despite some drastic downgrades to his costume. While certainly not as bland as Jeepers Creepers: Reborn, Jeepers Creepers 3 still fails to live up to the Creeper's legacy.

2 Jeepers Creepers 2

Jeepers Creepers 2 received mixed reviews upon its release but still features some impressive sequences that rival the iconic original. The startling open scene remains a masterclass in depicting horror and tension effectively in daylight. Jeepers Creepers 2 also centers the Creeper substantially more than the other movies in the franchise, building upon his role in the first movie. The relish with which Breck delivers his Creeper performance is palpable, perfectly balancing an unsettling combination of sinister and sensual as he selects his victims from the trapped students.

Jeepers Creepers 2 depicts the Creeper pursuing a bus of high school students returning from a basketball game. After the bus's tires are popped by the Creeper, the students must fight for survival on its final day of harvesting before hibernation. The sequel is set just days after Jeepers Creepers, providing a neat conclusion to the two movies. In fact, Jeepers Creepers 2's ending is far more satisfying than Jeepers Creepers 3, despite its open-ended nature. The action-based finale is a dramatic, but succinctly delivered, tonal shift compared to the first movie.

Similarly to Jeepers Creepers, this evolution is paced across several distinct acts. This makes Jeepers Creeper 2 the perfect sequel to the original, functioning as the second half of the Creeper's overarching narrative. The haunting cameo from Justin Long connects the two movies very tidily, which expounds upon and expands the original's slightly more streamlined story. While certainly not a flawless horror movie, Jeepers Creepers 2 is the ideal follow-up, with enough scares and tension to maintain the Jeepers Creepers reputation.

1 Jeepers Creepers

The original 2001 Jeepers Creepers is the absolute best movie of the franchise. Astoundingly, Jeepers Creepers received mixed critical reviews, but was favored by the horror community and soon garnered a cult following. The original Jeepers Creepers depicts brother and sister, Trish and Darry Jenner (Gina Phillips and Justin Long) on their way home for spring break. En route, they encounter a violently aggressive truck driver, who they later witness disposing of a body. This, of course, is revealed to be the Creeper, who soon targets the siblings for his harvest.

Interestingly, Jeepers Creepers was partly inspired by a true crime, which grounds the first act significantly. Throughout the first act, it is presumed that the Creeper will be human, with the eventual reveal marking a distinct change in tone and narrative. The slow reveal of the monster's inhumanity is part of the movie's genius, allowing Jeepers Creepers to evolve substantially as it progresses through its three acts. This was greatly facilitated by the haunting use of the song, "Jeepers Creepers," which unfortunately does not appear in the sequels, but is a prevalent theme throughout the movie.

Jeepers Creepers boasts the strongest cast ensemble, with all the central performances deftly delivered and with a central sibling relationship that is incredibly believable. This lays the perfect foundation for Jeepers Creepers and greatly contributes to the movie's increasing peril. Eileen Brennan's appearance as the Cat Lady is a particularly memorable moment that greatly bolsters the narrative. Overall, Jeepers Creepers is able to deliver a captivating story with an unbearably excruciating tone that develops throughout. None of the sequels have ever been able to recapture this magic, and as such, Jeepers Creepers remains the greatest Jeepers Creepers movie in the franchise.