{"id":1236,"date":"2026-10-30T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/?p=1236"},"modified":"2026-10-17T09:16:53","modified_gmt":"2026-10-17T09:16:53","slug":"victor-salva","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/10\/30\/victor-salva\/","title":{"rendered":"Victor Salva"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WARNING:<\/mark> <\/strong>This Article May Contain Spoilers<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though Victor Salva was a student of Francis Ford Coppola, and is genuinely a very good director as he was involved in a horror trilogy I am very fond of as you will see, there is no denying the man has a shadow following him \u2013 but this should not take away from his successes in cinema. Now, the eagle-eyed of you will notice there are only four films instead of the typical five. Unfortunately Dark House, <\/em>also known as Haunted, <\/em>was unbelievably difficult to get hold of\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeepers Creepers Trilogy<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

              I wrote a whole article on these films and in truth I could probably tell you the stories of one and two like the back of my hand, considering I grew up watching them as a teenage horror fan. I also won\u2019t pretend that I didn\u2019t like the first or third upon first watching however, once I watched the films in the correct order, as explained in my Jeepers Creepers Quadrilogy <\/em>article, I realised quite how clever they were. Not quite Final Destination <\/em>clever but there are very few franchises that are. To think the whole story, from the moment we meet Trish and Darry in Jeepers Creepers <\/em>to the defeat of the Creeper in Jeepers Creepers 2, <\/em>takes place over 48 hours! The fact that we see the school bus drive away at the end of Jeepers Creepers 3 <\/em>just shows the timeline for those who are truly paying attention! Three films, one monster, one relentless timeline. Look, I\u2019ll die on this hill – the second film is the strongest of the three. There\u2019s just simply something darker about the film compared to the first and third! For so long, the Creeper lurks in the shadows, attacking from a distance \u2013 more fear evoking for me than the truck chasing them down the highway in the first film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rosewood Lane<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, this film started out as much more of a thriller than a horror, as there was a seeming lack of the occult, paired with the mystery side to the story and especially in comparison to the other films in this article. The paper boy, Cam, starts out as simply a creepy kid, stalking Sonny, but gradually things get weirder! It’s interesting that dogs are repeatedly barking at him, let alone the fact that they chase him down after he breaks in to Sonny’s house. We all know these animals sense evil but this is definitely strange. What is odd is, why does Cam only kill Jack’s dog and no one else’s? Actually, why Jack at all if he genuinely did kill him? So, I’ll be honest – it isn’t clear throughout the film if Cam is just a psycho with a vendetta against Sonny’s family or if he is genuinely some sort of demon and for a pretty good film – that annoys quite a bit! Even the ending doesn’t exactly clarify much, except for maybe explaining the scene on the road with the signs!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clownhouse<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This film is actually Salva\u2019s first feature length creation, released three years after his short film, Something in the Basement<\/em>. Look, I won’t pretend there isn’t controversy around this film, the aforementioned shadow over his career, but we’re not here to talk about that. Funnily enough this film wouldn’t have been out of place in my Start in the Shadows<\/em> article as this was also Sam Rockwell\u2019s debut acting role! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m not afraid of clowns but I can completely understand why people are because characters like Cheezo and his friends are damn creepy from the very beginning and they’re not even the killers at this point! I actually think Salva could have dropped the incidental music and just left the animal sounds for when the real clowns are murdered it would have definitely made it more terrifying. The question is….why them? Why these brothers, unless it was a freak accident that they came across the home of Randy, Jeffrey and Casey? The main crux of this film however, at least in my opinion anyway, is all about Casey trying to face his fear of clowns to help his older brothers<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Nature of the Beast<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

              It\u2019s funny to think that when this film was released over here in the UK, it was given the much more on the nose title of Hatchet Man, <\/em>whereas this title provides a much more sinister idea \u2013 almost leading itself to the idea of the Devil in my opinion. This is the kind of film I was expecting from Rosewood Lane, <\/em>more of a cat and mouse psychological thriller than a genuine horror film. With the discovery of the waitress\u2019 body early in the film, I honestly thought I had this film figured out. Especially considering it is Adrian who follows her into the kitchen before he and Jack leave the diner, and with how disturbingly Eric Roberts plays the character even though some would probably see it as him just being an arsehole. I was even going to say that I thought the film would have been cleverer if the audience didn\u2019t know which of these men stole the money and which was the killer \u2013 especially considering that, neither of these men are a symbol of virtue. I definitely was not ready for Salva to flip the script the way he does at the end. But I guess that\u2019s the point, the audience are supposed to make these assumptions about our lead characters right until the end\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers Even though Victor Salva was a student of Francis Ford Coppola, and is genuinely a very good director as he was involved in a horror trilogy I am very fond of as you will see, there is no denying the man has a shadow following him \u2013 but this … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1237,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","latest_post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1236"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1238,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1236\/revisions\/1238"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}