CONTENT WARNING: The following article discusses sexual assault, child molestation, and child pornography. Please read with caution.
Calling all horror movie buffs! You probably already know that the third installment of the popular horror movie series Jeepers Creepers was released late September. But what you may not have heard is that the director behind the series, Victor Salva, is a convicted child molester. I know what you're thinking, and yes, I was completely shocked and in denial when I first heard this story too. But believe it or not, it's totally true.
In 1988, Victor Salva was convicted on accounts of both child molestation and posession of child pornography. This conviction came to be after Victor admitted to filming himself sexually assaulting an underage boy he worked with on his movie Clownhouse. The underage boy in question was Nathan Forest Winters, who played Casey in the film. At the time of the assault, Winters was only 12 years old.
After being sexually assaulted by Victor Salva several times, Nathan told his parents, who then reported Mr. Salva to the police. When his home was searched for evidence, police also found several other films containing footage of child pornography beyond the aforementioned tape of Nathan Forest Winters. Mr. Salva was sentenced to a very minimal prison sentence of three years, but was released on parole after only serving 15 months. He finished his parole in 1992, and is now a registered sex offender.
While that certainly should have been the end of Mr. Salva's career, that unfortunately was not the case at all. Only three years after finishing parole, Victor Salva released his next film Powder. Which, by the way, was created for Disney of all companies. Yep, that's right. Disney - as in the same Disney that literally has the target demographic of children and families - hired a registered sex offender to direct a film. Gross. Nathan Forest Winters, then 18, lead several protests outside of screenings of Powder following its release. Winters was quoted asking people not to see the film, as the earnings would "just go to line the pockets of a child molester".
Seeing as the first movie in the Jeepers Creepers series was released six years later, it is clear that many moviegoers did not listen to Winters' message. In fact, the Jeepers Creepers franchise has been one of great success. In total, the first two movies earned over 73 million dollars from the domestic box office and nearly 180 million worldwide as reported by The Numbers. The third film, which has only been out for roughly three weeks at the time I'm writing this, has already raked in over two million dollars and counting. Remember, as said by Nathan Forest Winters, that's another two million dollars going to "line the pockets of a child molester". And if that's not bad enough (which, by the way, it definitely is!) the most recent film actually includes a series of jokes about child molestation, showing that Salva has learned absolutely nothing from all this and sees it as a comical occurance.
I don't know about you, but after finding all that out I lost all interest in seeing any of the Jeepers Creepers films, or any other film directed by Victor Salva. For any of you long-term fans of the series who may still be struggling to come to terms with all this, I get it. I went through something similar when one of my favorite content creators was exposed as a sexual predator a few years ago. It can be difficult to comprehend and understand when someone you've looked up to, or someone who has created something that you enjoy, is exposed as a vile person. We tend to watch these films or other forms of media and not think about who could be behind them, and what their personal lives cound really contain.
But it is also extremely important to take this news as exactly what is is - disgusting and upsetting - and to withdraw our support from this film so that we as an audience are not continuing to give support to such a predator. I know firsthand that sexual assault survivors have a difficult time getting their voices heard as is. I cannot imagine how much harder it is to be taken seriously when your abuser is constantly earning millions of dollars in the entertainment industry. Luckily, there are plenty of other scary movies out there that were not directed by sex offenders. So, if you need a better film to spend your money on this Halloween season, give one of them a try instead.
