In defense of Victor Salva…
Ill keep this brief.
With the release of his newest movie “Jeepers Creepers 3” happening, debate has reignited about whether or not Victor Salva should be able to have a career. There is even talk of whether seeing a Salva movie makes you complicant in his past crime.
For those of you just hearing about this, (and its alot of people since this occurred originally back in 1993), here is a quick recap. Victor Salva directed a movie in 1988 called Clownhouse. Its about a young boy and his 2 brothers who are terrorized by 3 psychopaths in clown costumes. Salva molested one of the actors who was 12 at the time. Salva was arrested and convicted of the charges. He was sentenced to 3 years and served 15 months. Salva was on parole until 1992. Now in 1995, Victor Salva wrote and directed a picture for Touchstone Films, (A Disney company), called Powder. Powder is about a young albino man who has unusual powers and struggles to fit in to society. Powder recieved generally good reviews and Salvas career seemed to hold promise. That is until Nathan Forrest, the young actor from Clownhouse, started to protest showings of the movie in person and exposed Salvas crimes against him. This is the first time people had a debate about Victor Salva and how to feel about his movies. Could you enjoy his movies but be repulsed by his crimes? Should he be allowed to even make movies? This is an argument that was had in 1995 and should have been left in 1995. Now we sit in 2017 and the same issues keep popping up.
I saw Clownhouse on cable TV back in 1989. It wasnt really my type of movie but it had promise. If you didnt like clowns already, this movie would make sure you hated them by the end. Now since I have a good memory, when 1995s Powder came out I had remembered his previous movie. I had no interest in seeing Powder and to this day have only seen bits and pieces. My only interest in the movie had to do with Sean Patrick Flannery being the star and he had also played Young Indiana Jones on TV. (I will skip over my Jeff Goldblum phase, as it is embarrassing). When Nathan Forrest’s one man protest came out, I was disgusted with Salva and what he had done. Sure there were people trying to explain his actions, but somethings cant be explained away. I paid no more attention to Salva and never tried to rewatch Clownhouse. I had closed the door.
The door reopened in 2001 when I saw ads for a new horror movie called Jeepers Creepers. It looked intense. I love slashers and this looked like an interesting take on them. It looked gritty and unpolished. I had to see it. I saw it opening weekend and it blew me away. The ending stayed with me for weeks. All the build up to save Darius and in the end, none of it mattered. To this day, Jeepers Creepers is one of my favorite horror movies and the Creeper is one my favorite villians. I hadnt paid much attention to who was responsible for the movie until after opening weekend. The film finished in first place with around 15 million in ticket sales. For a low budget horror movie, thats impressive. With its success came the backlash, although I didnt think it was as intense as with Powder. People seemed to have made up their minds. People who wanted to see the movie, saw it, while people who didnt want anything to do with Salva stayed away. Thats fine. Thats the way its supposed to be. The discussion has been had, and since then nothing has changed. Victor Salva has not committed anymore crimes. All he has done is make movies. He made a sequel in 2003 and a small movie in 2006.
If youve heard anything from Victor Salva in the past few years its been how hes been trying to get financing for a third Jeepers Creepers movie. To me this was a no brainer since both films were successful and had a built in audience. Fans wanted a third film and any news about the project was eagerly devoured by them. So Salva was finally able to make Jeepers Creepers 3 and it hit theaters for a one-night showing on Sept 26th. I saw the film and loved it.
What amazes me is there are still people trying to keep Salva from having a career. My assumption is they want him to crawl into a hole and die. I dont want to get into a huge arguement about how we treat sex offenders in this country as that is for another LONG article. For now Id like to think that the arguement is over. All of this is simply a rehash of things that happened over 20 years ago. Victor Salva paid for his crime and has gone back to making movies. If you dont want to see them, dont. I still will because I enjoy his work. I can separate the movie and the actions of the director. Can you?
Id also like to point out that Roman Polanski drugged and anally raped a 13 year old girl. His punishment? He lives in Europe andcontinues to make movies He even won an Acadamy Award and got a standing ovation.
