Top 10 original titles for popular horror movies

Credit: United Artists

8. Here Comes the Boogeyman (Jeepers Creepers)

No matter how you feel about Victor Salva’s Jeepers Creepers franchise, you’ve got to admit it has a silly name. It obviously comes from the old children’s nursery rhyme, “Jeepers, creepers, where’d you get those peepers…” Oddly enough, it hadn’t been used for a horror movie until Salva released his film starring the notorious Creeper.

However, Salva didn’t always envision calling the film Jeepers Creepers, at least according to imdb. The original title is a far less catchy Here Comes the Boogeyman. While still a bit silly as in the case of the final title, it doesn’t have the benefit of being catchy or unique. It just sounds like an extremely lazy way of trying to name a horror film. For whatever reason, the title switched to Jeepers Creepers at some point during pre-production, and it’s a good thing that it did.

The original Here Comes the Boogeyman  title likely comes from the 1932 children’s song “Hush, Hush, Hush, Here Comes the Bogeyman” by Henry Hall and his Orchestra. The song is about the legendary “Bogeyman”, with lyrics like, “Hush, hush, hush, here comes the Bogeyman. Don’t let him come too close to you, He’ll catch you if he can.” It seems Salva liked the idea of using creepy old songs to title his horror film, he just wasn’t sure which one to use.

“Hush, Hush, Hush, Here Comes the Bogeyman” did make it to the official soundtrack for Jeepers Creepers, however. So Salva still found a way to involve the song.