JACKALS (2017)

Studio:       Scream Factory Films
Director:    Kevin Greutert
Writer:       Jared Rivet
Producer:  Tommy Alastra
Stars:     Deborah Kara Unger, Ben Sullivan, Chelsea Ricketts, Nick Roux, Johnathon Schaech, Stephen Dorff

Review Score:

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Summary:

While trying to deprogram their brainwashed son, a troubled family’s secluded cabin is beset by masked cultists.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

March 24, 1983 – Cultist Mateo breaks into his estranged family’s home where he stabs his parents and strangles his sister.

Wearing ski masks, Andrew Powell and cult deprogrammer Jimmy Levine stage a roadside incident that allows them to abduct Andrew’s brainwashed son Justin. A cultist accompanying Justin is left unconscious along the remote highway.

Jimmy and Andrew bring Justin to a secluded cabin. Also present is Andrew’s ex-wife Kathy, Justin’s brother Campbell, Justin’s girlfriend Samantha, and Samantha’s newborn daughter Zoe.

Justin is restrained to a chair. Immediately upon regaining consciousness, Justin angrily insists that the people assembled are not his family and his new name is ‘Thanatos.’

Jimmy begins attempting to deprogram Justin. At one point, Justin bites his tongue and spits blood all over Jimmy.

Campbell and Samantha privately discuss Justin’s problems. Andrew and Kathy talk about their broken family and what they did wrong as parents that led to Justin’s estrangement.

Jimmy has Samantha speak to Justin alone. Justin laughingly threatens that his cult is going to take Zoe.

Jimmy goes outside to chase away a girl wearing a fox mask. Jimmy discovers that the girl drew a cult symbol on the ground. Jimmy is suddenly lassoed from a tree limb above him. The girl in the fox mask stabs Jimmy in his stomach.

Having seen what happened to Jimmy, Andrew and Campbell go outside. The men retreat back to the cabin as soon as they are confronted by a large gathering of masked cultists.

The power goes out in the cabin. The family begins constructing weaponry out of household items to defend themselves.

A cultist tries grabbing Samantha through a window. Still alive, Jimmy stumbles to the front door. A masked cultist follows Jimmy inside and attacks everyone until Andrew and Campbell beat him to the floor.

Andrew sees that the cultists carved the word ‘Thanatos’ into Jimmy’s chest. Before dying from his wounds, Jimmy warns that the cultists are toying with the Powell family.

Andrew, Campbell, Kathy, and Samantha discuss what to do next. Campbell suggests both handing over Justin to the cultists and making a run for the nearest neighbor. Over the course of their conversation, Andrew is forced to reveal to Campbell that cheating on Kathy is what led to their disruptive divorce.

Justin begins howling from his room upstairs. The cultists howl outside in return as they continue surrounding the cabin.

Another masked cultist breaks inside and attacks the two men. Andrew strangles the attacker and unmasks him as the cultist who was with Justin during the kidnapping.

Justin threatens his family. Kathy embraces her son in a moment of empathy, allowing Justin to viciously bite her scalp.

Andrew takes Justin outside to distract the cult while Campbell runs out the back door to go for help. While the door is open, a cultist grabs at Samantha. Kathy stabs the cultist, causing him to release his grip.

The cultists close in on Andrew and Justin. Samantha helps them get back inside the cabin.

Campbell makes it to a truck, but cannot find the keys. Cultists capture him.

The family watches from the cabin as the cultists tie up Campbell outside. Campbell is doused with gasoline. Andrew proposes exchanging Justin for Campbell. Samantha refuses to give up Justin, standing in Andrew’s way with a bladed weapon.

Campbell is set on fire. Samantha appeals to Justin to do something. Kathy goes outside to her suffering son. Kathy is taken captive.

Another cultist attacks Andrew inside the cabin. After fighting off his attacker, Andrew goes outside to try rescuing Kathy.

Claiming to have come to his senses, Justin asks Samantha to let him go so he can save his parents. Samantha ultimately cuts Justin loose. Justin tells Samantha to flee into the woods with Zoe, which she does.

Cultists repeatedly stab Andrew. Andrew says, “I’m the father” before dropping dead on the ground. Fox Girl slits Kathy’s throat. Justin comes outside and kneels in front of the masked cult leader.

Samantha makes it to a road where she waves at approaching headlights. A masked cultist is seen standing behind her.

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Review:

It’s too late for Andrew and Kathy Powell to save their marriage that already ended in divorce.  But it might not be too late to save their estranged son Justin, who joined a mysterious cult of mask-wearing murderers and rechristened himself as ‘Thanatos.’

With the help of an ex-Marine turned brainwashing deprogrammer named Jimmy, Andrew violently abducts Justin, hoping they can find a way to bring back the young man’s mind.  Justin is restrained inside a secluded cabin for a forced intervention, flanked by his mother Kathy, brother Campbell, girlfriend Samantha, and infant daughter Zoe, all of whom Justin renounces as not being his true family.

The people to whom Justin now pledges allegiance are right outside the windows.  Assembled in the shadows are the very cultists that the Powells hoped to take Justin away from.  They’ve come to retrieve their stolen sheep, and they plan on taking him back during a siege set to terrify and terrorize everyone caught inside the cabin.

In the vein of “The Strangers” and other films of that ilk, “Jackals” combines quiet cult chills with home invasion horror for a film featuring visceral violence as well as psychological spooks.  The movie purports to be “based on true events,” although that’s a generous stretch of the phrase.  Screenwriter Jared Rivet was only loosely inspired by the climate of the ‘Satanic Panic’ from the 80s/90s, as well as an interview with a retired cult deprogrammer about his unorthodox tactics.  Rivet merged those two seeds for a fictional “what if?” exploring how far a homicidal horde might go to rescue one of their own.  “Based on true events” just sounds so much sexier as a selling point than “peripherally influenced by unspecific people who didn’t actually exist.”

“Jackals” takes place in 1983, yet you wouldn’t know it if not for text identifying the date.  Aside from collared clothing and a tube television in the background, there isn’t a throwback tone to anything onscreen.  Add the usual line of dialogue lamenting a lack of cellphone service and the setting could be current all the same.

“Jackals” also opens on a single take scene of someone stalking inside a family’s house in first-person.  The shot is clearly ripped right out of John Carpenter’s “Halloween,” though its obvious origin isn’t what’s wrong.  The problem is that this prologue is separate from the cult chaos at the cabin, and doesn’t weave into that plot with any direct relation at all.

Which speaks to the overall issue sticking in the film’s foot like a nagging splinter hampering its stride.  Oftentimes, the movie plays out as a series of setups instead of an arcing story challenging characters to do something other than survive.

The greatest hurdle for the screenplay is coming up with new reasons to separate somebody so one cultist after another can wildly grab at him/her before another nick of time rescue.  One such moment has Samantha moving to another room to change her baby.  Really?  There’s an army of masked murderers literally on the doorstep.  Now isn’t a time for modesty.  Everyone can probably stand to deal with a dirty diaper for sixty seconds if that means your safety is still in their immediate eye line.

Another dagger cutting a great deal of blood out of “Jackals” is Ben Sullivan’s terribly annoying portrayal of Justin.  Sullivan seemingly has no interest in playing Justin using more than one note.  Dialogue doesn’t give him anything more interesting to say than vaguely threatening taunts like, “piggy, piggy, piggy, piggy, piggy!”  But his unblinkingly wide eyes and psychotic smirk are such tired tics for this kind of character.  He’s like a movie Martin Shkreli whom you just want to punch in the face.

Stephen Dorff, on the other hand, does a lot to liven up his lines.  Dorff alternately softens his delivery to the women while taking a tougher tone toward the men in the same sentence.  It’s subtle.  It’s smart.  It’s how an experienced actor elevates a practical role into a charismatic personality using motivated mannerisms.

Jared Rivet wrote “Jackals” in 2006.  Unfortunately, the finished film arrives at a time when intruders in animal masks have run their course as part of any horror movie premise.

Cinematically, “Jackals” hits all the right visual cues with sinister shapes standing still in silhouette and intermittently intense moments of suddenly frenzied action.  Except formulaic finesse can’t counterbalance lacking story substance behind the cult or the characters in the cabin.  “Jackals” has external appeal as a moderately frightening thriller, but not enough depth for scant scary movie satisfaction to last very long.

Review Score:  55

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