Review – Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer (2008)

The first thing about the film that I noticed is how great the picture looks, and that’s because it was shot on 35mm. Which, just helped the cinematography that much more. In addition, the lighting looks great and is very reminiscent of Raimi and Jackson’s work.

David Scott’s practical effects work is fantastic. I will definitely keep my eye out for more of his work and I hope he has a great career as an FX artist.

The artwork for the poster is also notable. Take a second and check it out. It’s so rare to see great artwork for horror films these days.

Jack Brooks is like one of those horror gems you probably missed until one night you catch it on TV twenty minutes in and you’re all “Oooohh what’s this!?” and then end up watching the rest of it.

With all of that said, if you’re interested in seeing the film, stop reading and go watch it already. I’ve got a few opinions that might seem like I’m putting it in a bad light, but theyre really just suggestions that maybe the filmmakers will read and keep in mind for the sequel

I haven’t been the only one to say this, but the pacing of everything is just wrong. The biggest evidence being that Jack doesn’t actually get to the slaying until a full hour into the 85 minute movie. Alot of the story could have been shortened drastically and the night when all the best parts happen could have been expanded on to give the film more substance, instead of trying to cram the last act into something between 15 and 20 minutes. Sure Jack’s backstory and development leading up to the big battle are important, but there is no reason why it needed to take up so much of the film. It only hurts the film in the end because there are so many scenes full of unimportant shots that make the scenes drag on. For example, a number of scenes have a character (or characters) doing something where each movement and each action has a different shot. It gets to be pretty unnerving and during the time it took for all of the shots to wrap everything up, I’m wondering why the director felt they were necessary.

Another thing is everything else I wasn’t gushing about at the beginning of the review. Sure the practical effects look great, but they look too cartoonish for my tastes. Yeah, the overall tone is supposed to be like a horror / slapstick comedy, but I never found any of it to be genuinely funny. For example, when the professor gets possessed by the heart, he kind of loses his motor functions so he runs into a door alot to get it open. After the 6th shot of running into the door, im just left wondering if they could have made better use of the screen time. Or another example, the guy trying to steal Jack’s girlfriend was supposed to be funny(?) but didn’t have any good lines and the character was just incredibly annoying. I know the characters main purpose was to push Jack’s anger issues, but even Jack’s anger issue seemed unnecessary. It was never taken too far or exploited whenever the opportunity presented itself. No catchy one-liners, no ridiculously violent over the top episodes, nada. Unless you attribute the effects work to Jack’s character, it just did’nt seem cohesive.

I didn’t find the story to be incredibly clever or witty. Everything is pretty straight forward like a cut and dry blueprint for making a hero vs monster movie. Monsters kill heroes parents, monsters try to kill heroes girlfriend, hero uses his day job trade to kill monsters. Being obvious fans of horror, I would have expected a different take on “the curse” other than the “heart that makes you it eat, so it can possess you” device that was used in Jason Goes to Hell.

Anyway, enough of my ranting, all things aside I DO actually like the movie. It’s just that its another one of those “had so much potential” movies, and if anyone if wondering where it missed it’s potential, those are a few of the points that prevented it from being a true cult phenomenon.

- Wes Fierce

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