VICTOR SALVA (Writer/Director) was born in Martinez, California, twenty miles outside San Francisco. An avid filmmaker from the age of 13, he had written and directed over 20 short films and one feature length film (all in Super 8) before he graduated high school in 1976.
Often holding down two jobs to finance his weekend filmmaking, in the late eighties Victor's 37-minute short Something in the Basement took first place in the fiction category at the Sony/AFI Home Video Competition. A horror allegory, it told the eerie story of a young boy awaiting his brother's return from a bloody war and the evil presence in the basement who claims the young soldier is already dead. This highly acclaimed short went on to win several national awards, including a Bronze Plaque at the Chicago International Film festival, and brought Victor to the attention of Francis Ford Coppola, who was one of the judges at the Sony/AFI Contest.
Coppola then produced Salva's first theatrical feature, Clownhouse, which Victor again wrote and directed. Using the talented cast of his award-winning short, Victor called the film "a campfire story." it was a low-budget thriller about the fear of clowns, one that relied on suspense and character and downplayed blood and gore.
His next film brought him to Los Angeles. The Nature of the Beast starred Lance Henriksen and Eric Roberts and quickly became New Line's biggest direct-to-video title of that year. Again Victor wrote the screenplay as well as directed.
The following year Victor made his first studio picture: Powder. The story of an albino boy with strange powers that make him an outcast in a small Texas town, Powder starred Sean Patrick Flanery, Jeff Goldblum, and Mary Steenburgen. The film received much critical acclaim and made several top ten lists for the year.
The filmmaker describes Rites of Passage, released in 1999, as his most personal film, a unique, coming-of-age thriller starring Jason Behr (Roswell), Dean Stockwell and James Remar.
Jeepers Creepers is Victor's fifth feature film and he says he has enjoyed the symmetry of doing another "campfire story" for Francis and American Zoetrope, who first championed him.
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