So we have another monster slayer, will Jack Brooks be another wannabe Van Helsing shitfest or do we have a genuine, bonafide, tentacle slashing roller coaster on our hands? Meh, probably not , but let’s have a look anyways. Jack Brooks (played by Trevor Matthews) is one angry guy, a really angry guy. After his whole family is slaughtered on a camping trip when he was a youngster he has never forgiven himself for being a ‘pussy’ and is constantly lashing out at the world as a response. With the help of his local Shrink he tries to forge out a life for himself as a day time plumber and attends night classes at college with his girlfriend. Little does Jack know that he will soon be embroiled in some seriously weird monster action as a result of his Prof discovering an old artifact in his garden. Will jack be able to save his girlfriend and put an end to the monster menace, or is he gonna puss out all over again?
For a start i found Jack Brooks to be a lot of fun, been a while since i saw a horror flick deal out the gore and still maintain a good tongue in cheek sentiment. The last movie i seen like this was Robert Kurtzman’s The Rage, 2007 (which i thoroughly recommend), it has the same comic mentality. Everybody likes a laugh and horror bods are no different (some probably won’t admit it though), well i found Jack Brook’s (JB) humour hit the spot. Even the monster designs are created in such a way that you wont know whether to laugh or jump behind the couch. Personally i went with the former…. It’s the truth you know.
The pacing and action of JB is fairly slow to start off with, hitting us with the usual exposition of JB’s life and why he’s so pissed off with everything. Approx half way through the movie things start to rev up and we get into some sweet monster action. This slowly builds to the climax at the end which is a class ending but i ain’t gonna spoil it for ya. The monster effects are really old school, they’re not really built to look convincing, just built to look exciting and it succeeds well in this regard, it never really shows that it’s a low budget flick. Considering most of the creature effects in low budget flicks look like tomato ketchup on paper mache JB is def a step above and horror aficionados will appreciate this.
Acting wise the whole cast is solid, Robert Englund puts in a sweet performance as the local Professor, it’s always great to see the original Freddy up there strutting his stuff. Trevor Matthews does great as JB and pulls off the torn nature of the character well and often in a very comic fashion. I can’t mention everybody here but there are a few other actors that stick out and as a whole the casting dept deserves kudos on this one, brilliant job.
All in all i strongly recommend JB to horror fans, it’s got everything a monster flicks lovers like and more, probably a good one to catch on the weekend with the girlfriend or other half. get the beer in and enjoy.
Movie Details
Director: Jon Knautz
Writer: Jon Ainslie, Jon Knautz, Trevor Matthews, Patrick White
Actors: Trevor Matthews, Robert Englund, Daniel Kash, Rachel Skarsten
Release Year: 2007