Jackals (2017) Reviews

• If only it was made in 2006......People who r comparing it to The Strangers aint aware of the far superior French film Them aka Ils.

  Fella_shibby2018-05-20

  Saw this recently on a blu-ray. Had seen the trailer n the concept of cult group n the theme of home invasion piqued my interest. Of course Kevin Greutert's name was the other good factor. The guy being an editor himself knows how to control his film's pacing and how to build suspense. Most people r comparing it to The Strangers (2008) but if u read the trivia section, the script of this film was written in 2006. The other thing is Greutert was the editor for The Strangers but the real fact is The Strangers itself was a copy of the far superior French film Them aka Ils (2006). Coming back to this film, the director managed to start the film well with the initial home invasion murders a la Halloween style n then cut back to the van kidnapping scene n the cabin in the middle of nowhere. The settings n era were good too. The 80's era was obviously to show the lack of mobile phones n a reference to the Charles Manson cult group. The mask-wearing villains were creepy, Stephen Dorff's role was very small. I really wanted some showdown between him n the villains. Some viewers may complain that it would hav been better for the family to leave the cultist son but if u notice the start scene, the cultist person do come back to slaughter his family.

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• All the same "Jackals"

  BiiivAL2018-06-07

  It often happens that the directors stand in the place of the editors, and also the editors become directors. So it happened with Kevin Grotert, the same person who mounted all the beloved "Saw" as a "Game of Survival", and several subsequent films. But, unlike the first "Saw", in the projects "Saw 3D" and "Saw 6" Kevin acted as a director. In addition, he withdrew the "Jezabel" and the same horror "Visions" with Jim Parsons. The story of the "Jackals" or, as decided (cruel and merciless) Russian hire "Circles of the Devil" tells of a family who has gone to a small house in the middle of the forest to get his son out of the sect. The theme of the story is reminiscent of "Strangers", "You are the End!" And of course "The Last Expulsion of the Devil", but here is a much simpler concept, during which we watch an hour and a half as a guy tied to a chair sits and depicts an obsession. From the positive aspects of the film I can highlight the realistic game of Ben Sullivan and Stephen Dorff, who literally decorated the picture with his presence. As soon as it becomes smaller in the frame, the film ceases to be interesting. Even beautifully shot scenes, with a chilling blue color that enveloped the backyard and killers in masks, does not save this mediocre story. "We need children ..." - may be needed, but only in this desire there is absolutely no drama, nothing that would catch the viewer. The killers copied from "Strangers" do not have their own character, they are only a murder weapon, whose story is not interesting to learn. "Jackals" or, excuse me, "Circles of the Devil" - an unfinished project that looks once, and then safely forgotten.

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• Not terrible, but not at all memorable either

  horrorgasm2017-09-02

  Just another knockoff of The Strangers. In fact, this director worked on that movie, so I guess that's where he got the idea. The bad guys here have slightly more motive than in The Strangers, they're attacking this house to get one of their members back, but beyond that we know absolutely nothing about them or their motives, only that they're another group of mysterious masked people who like to arbitrarily torture and murder anyone in their way. It's not a terrible movie, but it doesn't really do anything new or interesting either. It's watchable, but completely unmemorable. Don't expect any form of satisfaction from the ending either. One more thing. Why did they bother to make this set in the early 80's? It seemed to have no bearing at all on the plot or characters and if it wasn't for the old style TV and picture of Ronald Reagan on a mantle that they show for a few seconds in the beginning, you'd never know this was supposed to be happening in the 80's. There's no 80's feel to anything in the movie. Somehow I suspect that they did this for the sole purpose of creating an excuse for no one to have a phone...

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• Unwatchable

  Garp532017-09-01

  I tuned into this movie well aware that it was a derivative, done-to-death "people under siege in a remote cabin" story, so my expectations were certainly not high at all, but jeez... There was not an original moment in the whole movie, the characters behaved as irrationally as a group of lobotomy patients and nothing about the plot makes even a wit of sense...You have been warned...

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• Jack all...

  bushtony2017-09-06

  Admittedly my expectations were low from the outset. Therefore, I was initially (the operative word here, alas) pleasantly surprised as the film capably and intriguingly set up its premise. Wayward son rescued from creepy mask-wearing death cult and taken to isolated family cabin in the woods for deprogramming by tough-talking ex-marine, divorced mum and dad, resentful older brother and girlfriend and baby daughter. Carpenters "Assault On Precinct 13" springs to mind as the cultists lay siege to the homestead and the motley troupe prepare to fight back with limited resources. I mean, if you want a classy blueprint, they don't come much classier than the classics (Rio Bravo, Night of The Living Dead, Assault on Precinct 13, Straw Dogs, etc). The set-up is a good one, the characters are portrayed by mediocre but to some extent competent actors, the script is a bit tawdry and clichéd, but what the hell, in the short term it looked primed to entertain. Until about twenty minutes in. Then it fell apart. It soon became transparently obvious where it was headed by signposting the foregone conclusion that our intrepid good guys were not going to win or put up much of a convincing fight. Why? Because there was no point, they were going to lose. The ex-marine was mind-bendingly dumb and useless, walking straight into an obvious trap that stopped his clock, making him the first to fall. What a delight he must have been in a war-zone. The brainwashed son is portrayed as almost completely beyond redemption from the outset, a fact confirmed when he bites his brainless mother in the cranium, coming away with a snarling mouthful of wig. Everyone bickers and argues about what to do next, what course of action to take. This process burns up most of the running time and provides with only a sense that here is a bunch of delusional idiots who are doomed. The result is the nullification of any suspense or any feeling there may be a smart twist to the proceedings at some point. Pop quiz. You're inside and a gang of homicidal cultists are outside wanting to get inside and slaughter you. Do you: A. Run around outside in the dark woodland, blunder about looking for help that isn't there, try (and fail) to take them on single handed with a knife on a broom handle, wander up to them unarmed and snivelling just to make it easy for them, or B. All stay inside, batten down the hatches, arm your group as best as possible and get ready to kill the living bejeezus out of anyone who tries to get in The hapless bunch make something of a half-hearted stab at plan B, but soon reach the conclusion that plan A is the way to go. And as the audience can see the train-track trajectory after the first twenty minutes – especially if they have the most meagre familiarity with the modern horror flick - what could have been a taut and chilling little repel-the-borders home invasion thriller disintegrates hopelessly into a by-the-numbers plod to an inevitable "evil triumphs" conclusion. Some might argue that because I didn't get to see what I would have liked to see in the film I therefore didn't like the film. To some extent that is true. But it wasn't that the good guys lost as much as how they lost. They lost because the poorly conceived script made the characters dumb, mindless and irrational. If they'd gone down swinging and thinking, or thinking and swinging, then at least the outcome might have landed with some impact. As it is, what we got in the end, was jack all. Wasted potential is always a shame. This is no exception.

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