The Legend of Halloween Jack (2018) The Curse Of Halloween Jack (2019)
Another Northbank Entertainment franchise to add to their Robert The Doll saga. Dynamic duo Andrew Jones (producer, writer, director, etc) and Lee Bane (actor, co-producer) strike again with a micro budget tale (and sequel) about a scarecrow-costumed killer back from the grave to take revenge on the townsfolk who executed him for crimes he hadn’t committed.
Absolutely amateurish, lacking the slightest spark of originality or creativity, ineptly scripted, shot and edited, awkwardly acted and consistently incoherent; the man is executed by shotgun but when resurrected is seen wearing a noose around his neck, the supposed locale is Dunwich, USA – people use dollars and some of the cast attempt American accents but the cars are right hand drive, the buildings, street signs and majority of accents recognisably British, a police detective murders a witness for absolutely no reason…. The height of stupidity comes when the ‘teenagers’ attending a Halloween party, every one of them dressed as a monster or horror character, all rush out in a screaming panic when Halloween Jack walks in.
Some of Jones’ earlier efforts had shown the seeds of promise. The Midnight Horror Show, Valley Of The Witch (both 2014) and The Last House On Cemetery Lane (2015) all displayed a modicum of visual style and narrative tension, and the 1940s set episodes of the Robert series exhibited some attempts at creating a period atmosphere. However, none of the successive Northbank releases have managed to improve on the scant quality of the previous titles, and the Halloween Jack films are several cuts below even those – they are not only poorly made, illogical, derivative and pedestrian but worst of all, dull, insipid and boring.