Jackals

Director - Kevin Greutert (Saw 3D: The Final Chapter, Saw VI)
Starring - Chelsea Ricketts (True Blood, Scream Queens), Johnathon Schaech (Legends of Tomorrow, Sleepy Hollow), and Nick Roux (Tomato Red, Jennifer Falls)
Release Date - 2017
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "Family first"
Format - Bluray (Personal Collection) (screener)

Rating (out of 5):

      This year has had some ups and downs.  When it comes to the downs we have lost so many influential and inspiring people.  My hero and the reason I love horror, George A. Romero, passed this year.  I never had the opportunity to meet him but I still have fond memories of watching his movies growing up and how it shaped my tastes in horror.  His contribution to horror can never be denied and I have yet to meet a horror fan that was not a fan of his.  With that being said, the year has had a few ups.  One being the amount of great horror movies being pumped out.  I can remember reviewing so many bad movies last year but it seems like this year the quality was turned up to 11.  A few weeks back Scream Factory released a press release for the Kevin Greutert home invasion flick Jackals.  Most of you may remember Greutert and his contributions to the Saw franchise.  It looked fun so I requested a copy.  They were kind enough to send one my way.  Thanks guys!

     The film takes place in 1983 with the Powell family; Kathy (Deborah Kara Unger), Andrew (Schaech), Campbell (Nick Roux), and Samantha (Ricketts).  Kathy and Andrew's son Justin (Ben Sullivan) joined a cult and turned his back on his family including his girlfriend Samantha and their baby girl.  They hire a former marine with experience working in cults to kidnap Justin and to deprogram him.  What they don't expect is the cult to find them at their secluded cabin in the woods with no escape.  Now they have to fight for their lives before they suffer a fate worse than death at the hands of the Jackals.

       I'm not much on home invasion flicks.  Most of the stories feel like they try to be sophisticated torture porns where most of the time the family find themselves tied to a chair and tortured.  Very little story to work with.  Jackals wasn't that at all. It added a few elements that I wish I would see more in horror films.  The acting in this one is decent but no one was winning any awards.  It was cool to see Stephen Dorff in a small role.  He did a great job and did not oversell it.  Sadly, he didn't last long and we were left with a bit of a lackluster cast.  The cast was way over-dramatic at times they didn't need to be which ruined any tension or atmosphere the film was building.  Listening to women scream during a point in the film where nothing is happening only turns the viewer off to the suspense.  The story for this one is great and I loved how the cult was incorporated into it.  The 80s was a unique time.  Religious organizations were still trying to convince the masses that metal and horror movies were the work of the devil and in doing so they created a panic among suburban moms that a cult will kill their family.  It was easy to pitch to stay at home moms with no time on their hands and had seen documentaries and the Manson Family murders.  I like how the story worked that into the time period.  I also liked how it wasn't just another torture porn guised as a home invasion flick.  We do have some of the elements of the home invasion sub-genre but the film was more centered around character development and the cult.  My biggest and only real complaint about the story is the ending.  The ending we got was cheap and could have been so much more.  Finally, the film has several on screen kills that deliver the red stuff and practical effects but they are not that memorable.  The effects are bare minimum and not that impressive.   The kills are violent but they don't offer up any originality or gore that one would expect from a film like this.  Overall, Jackals was not the film I was expecting but I'm damn glad it was the one I got.  I wish more horror films adopted the cult angle because I feel there is a lot of potential there.  The film isn't something that will change the genre but it still entertains.  Check it out.