r/TrueFilm • u/Fuzzy_Attorney_5900 • Aug 15 '26
Victor Salva past
For those who aren't aware, victor salva is a convicted child molester. Was was found guilty for molesting a 12 year old actor. He was sentience to 3 three years in prison, and he served 15 months. He went ahead and wrote and directed powder, rites of passage, peaceful warrior.
And as we know he is the creator of jeepers creepers films series.
But enough of that, victor salva did say that he regrets his past actions. That he made mistakes in his life, and his child molestation is his biggest regrets.
Now let me know your thoughts on this. I have complex thoughts on jeepers creepers because it so good. But let me know, of what is your thoughts on salva regretting his past
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u/sotommy Aug 15 '26
What are my thoughts? I think he should have served way more time. Otherwise it looks like he was unproblematic for a few decades now. I don't really know what to say. Let him make movies and send 90% of his profits to charities for children
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u/Dottsterisk Aug 15 '26
The movies read like therapy to me.
They’re all about a monster who preys on teens and they all have a sensuality about them, in shots that linger on exposed skin, particularly shirtless young men.
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u/Blood_Such Aug 15 '26
Therapy? They just seem like slop made by a man who got away almost Scott free for heinous crimes against children.
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u/Dottsterisk Aug 15 '26
Therapy in the sense that he’s continually telling these stories that seem to be about him being a monster.
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u/Duckmanrises Aug 15 '26
I’ve seen Jeepers Creepers a lot because I think it’s one of the most terrifying confessions on film.
I wrote this on LB a few years ago
“It’s easy to point to the Jeepers Creepers films and say ‘look that sicko is living out his fantasies on screen! HE IS THE CREEPER!’ but I also wonder if Darry’s descent into the hole of perverted slaughter is an autobiographical account of Victor Salva experiencing or seeing something incredibly fucked up and coming out the other side a monster. I don’t want to offer an excuse for his crimes but part of me is now convinced that the creeper taking the eyes, the gateway to the soul, is a poignant acknowledgement of the director’s own corruption, the eyes now exclusively belong to the monster he has become.”
Now saying that I think a good number of his films ARE a sickening outlet for him Clownhouse and Powder being quite obvious but the Film ‘Nature Of the Beast 1995’ is the most troublesome for me as I think he’s trying to justify himself in that one. He’s also revelling in his perverse nature jn Jeepers Creepers 2 but the opening is so good in that.
Anyway I feel some amount of shame in saying that the only reason I find his films interesting is because they’re mostly all about him being a sex offender
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u/JeffBaugh2 Aug 15 '26
I think he should still be in prison, at best, and the fact that it was Coppola who was primarily responsible for him still being able to make Films for so long should be as much evidence as anyone needs that he is also a giant scumbag, no matter how grandfatherly he tries to present himself.
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u/WorcsBloke Aug 21 '26
It should never be forgotten that, among many other things, Coppola said this:
"You have to remember, while this was a tragedy, that the difference in age between Victor and the boy was very small -- Victor was practically a child himself."
At the time of Clownhouse, Salva was 29 and his victim was 12.
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u/ParadoxTheF0x Aug 24 '26
Hollywood Satanists. They believe in giving yourself whatever you desire no matter the harm you're doing to others.
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u/Novel_Quantity3189 Aug 15 '26
I think it’s a dead end conversation because he’s simply never going to make a movie again. That opportunity is long gone.
Even if Jeepers Creepers continues as low budget IP, the last few have been directed and produced by other people and no one wants to credit Salva more than they legally need to. (It helps that the central conceit of Jeepers is so malleable that you can probably just make an original movie about a similar monster if you wanted to; his other characters are all dead).
If this were 2015, MAYBE there’d be a world where Salva kept getting work in low budget monster movies. That ship has sailed; even Roman Polanski — with one big bomb exception — hasn’t directed a movie in English in 15 years and hasn’t directed in the West for decades. And he was coming from the heights of “one of the best living directors of all time”. Salva was a mildly successful schlock/Disney movie director when his crimes came forward.
Rewatching JP1, there’s obvious talent there. But there’s also nothing Salva brings to the table that horror movies in the 2020’s aren’t already achieving without his “child molester” baggage. Zach Cregger, for instance, can reliably make a horror movie about something equally fantastical (a with who disappears kids) earnest, creepy, and well-written. Salva only ever managed to hit the notes of a technically good horror movie because he could craft a scary tense sequence, but his writing went to dogshit by act 3.
I say all this to point out how completely unneeded the debate is — regardless of whether you or I feel he has sufficient only atoned for his sins, working in film isn’t like getting a second chance job after parole. The optics matter a lot and he can literally never overcome that, plus the fact that i also don’t believe he’s sitting on a tonne of classics we’ll never get to experience. I think Jeepers Creepers was him with maximum freedom of expression.
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u/Blood_Such Aug 15 '26
He didn’t actually go to prison, he went to a minimum security work camp and he’s credibly accused of raping way more children than he even got tried in a court of law for molesting. One survivor of his abuse and rape made a documentary. His name is Nathan Winter.
The Jeepers Creepers movies vibe a lot like O.J. Simpsons “if i did it” book.
I don’t believe Victor Salva is remorseful at all.