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The writer-director behind genre classic Jeepers Creepers, Victor Salva returns with a lean, mean sequel which confirms winged demon-beastie The Creeper as a modern horror icon.

He talks primal fear, scary actors and whether his killer creature is really evil "or just like us".

Where did you first get the idea for The Creeper?

I've been a monster movie fan since I was little boy, basically. Not the Freddy and the Jasons - I'm in my 40s so my monsters were Dracula, Frankenstein, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, a lot of the Universal monster movies.

I don't have any illusion that The Creeper is as popular or will ever be as popular as any of the classic movie monsters, but I think in the heart of every young horror fan is his desire to create his own creature.

I'm a huge fan of The Creature From The Black Lagoon. I knew that there would be some aspects of my monster that would look a bit like the Creature, but I really picked a bunch of things that I thought would scare me. It's a mysterious thing, because I don't think in my own mind I've figured out what he is, completely. Nor do I think I would like to share that with anyone, because I think part of his scariness is that we don't know what the hell it is.

I created a creature that I would find very unnerving, and I can't think of a more horrible way for anyone to go out than to be eaten. I think that's still the most primal fear of all humans: to be eaten. But I don't really contend that the Creeper is this evil creature. I think he's just one above us on the food chain. He has to kill these things and eat them, in order to fortify his own body, which is exactly what human beings do every day.

There's something about him that really does get under the skin. There's a real demonic quality...

I'm so glad to hear you say that, because I have nothing to go on except my own view of how it turned out - and I've seen the movie a zillion times now so it's absolutely powerless over me, it's just a bunch of images that run together.

I know when I was shooting it, it worked for me because of Jonathan Breck, who plays The Creeper. In the first film we were both fumbling around, trying to figure out what he was about, what he should be. In the second one, Jonathan brought so much more to the table. There were one or two takes where I turned to my script supervisor and said, "What is that sound?" I thought it was some special sound that the sound guys were mixing into my headphones, and she said, "That's Breck."

And I couldn't believe that he could make that sound out of a human throat. I think Breck is a big part of what gets under my skin when I see the different takes of The Creeper. I think he's much scarier in Jeepers 2. He really got into it.

How did you decide to cast Breck?

On the first Jeepers Creepers DVD we have Breck's audition for The Creeper. We had a ton of men come in and audition for the Creeper. The caveat was that they couldn't say a word. They had to come into the room and they had to sniff out this other actor, find him, and then sniff around his body until he found a part that he liked. It was the weirdest audition that I've held for any part in any movie I've ever done.

We did get a lot of wonderful, incredible takes on this thing, but Breck's was the most unnerving. He had shaved his head completely just for this audition and his eyes, those blue eyes of his, just burned out across the room. When he was done sniffing out this actor, we all looked at each other and said, "That was the first one that was really scary." He was really unnerving and it was a great joy to find out that he was actually quite a sweet guy.

Did you always imagine there would be a sequel?

No, in fact I am embarrassed to say that I told everyone after the first Jeepers that I would never, ever make a sequel to any of my films. It was actually [executive producer and Godfather director] Francis Ford Coppola who said, "This is a great opportunity for you to make some real money," because, of course, none of us made any money on the first one, people never do. That's a terrible reason for making a movie, by the way, and Francis said that. He said, "I know that's the worst reason in the world for making a movie but do you have any ideas for the sequel?" I said, "Well, yeah, I want to do this thing kinda like Hitchcock's Lifeboat, only The Creeper's out there."

Even though I'd always said that I would never do a sequel, by the time our conversation was over that afternoon, I was thrilled about it, couldn't wait to try and make these things work. And I have to say, I think I made a better movie than the first one, a much better movie than the first one.

They gave me twice the time and twice the money, so Jeepers 2 was almost like a second chance - the monster movie I wanted to do in the first place. And I kinda looked at it like that. I also ate a lot of crow and said, "I should never say never."

So will there be a Jeepers Creepers 3?

Well, here I am again right? I don't know. I enjoyed the way this film turned out and it was a really good experience for me, so to say no would be stupid at this point. You know, money talks. If Jeepers Creepers 2 flies like an eagle then maybe so. If it tanks, then we may have seen the last of The Creeper.