Harockerce
What a beautiful movie!
pointyfilippa
The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.
Lachlan Coulson
This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.
Ginger
Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.
ljulien
Long story short :
-no scenario
worst acting ever (you want to punch the face of the main character...)end is so bad that you want a payoff for wasting that much your time. Im serious, its just a bad climax of some home invasion, with no explanation at all...
Tony Bush
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 inThe 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.
jrervin-04054
Watched this after the movie was hyped a bit on a few online horror forums and ended up being fairly disappointed.Admittedly, I'm not big on home invasion flicks as it is so take that into consideration.There doesn't seem to be any reason for the 80s setting outside of an excuse not to have cellphones. The home, clothing and style could easily be modern. The only 80s style with the filming is the grain, and the story seems more late 90s-early 00s than anything.The acting is pretty solid but the cult member brother goes a bit too far into the crazy scale and ends up coming off a bit silly.The cult members that attack look cool, but seem a bit to similar to the You're Next and Strangers villains, and it was a little frustrating to not get any detail about the cult at all, making the story seem a bit, useless maybe? They're also given little to no personality. But that seems fine with the huge personalities of the family members.The camera work on the beginning is really dark and shoddy, but the rest of the film is shot very well. The editing is good, but was this cut down significantly? With the lack of a good ending (the one present is really abrupt and does nothing for the story) and the weird edition of Matteo that's never really properly explained it seems like maybe this was chopped up a bit too much.The effects were good, of simple and not super unique. I did like the burning hands.Stephen Dorff was a nice surprise and I liked his character above the others, which turned out to be unfortunate. Props on getting him though.All in all, it certainly isn't terrible it's just not really my speed, as it's more of an action over substance home invasion which isn't really my thing, as I said before.
Flow
I'm really sorry about Jackals but man what a letdown it turned out to be. I was hoping for something more like You're Next or The Void, but far from it. Typical The Strangers kind of movie, when you hope to see something good, some action, some natural decisions, instead, bore fest.Can't believe it ended just like that, a conclusion that made the run time of the movie completely useless, with nothing to show whatsoever. Really little to offer and even less to make you feel about it, you get no sympathy for the characters, no desire to see what happens next, who's next, you're just in for the ride cause you pressed Play.All in all, Jackals is definitely a No. Pass!Cheers!