Basement Jack

I'm beginning to wonder if I've been watching the same films as some of the other contributers on IMDb.I enjoy good horror films and I have been taking the ratings from this site into account when deciding which films to watch ( I've learnt my lesson now ).Unfotunately most of the recommendations and reviews I have read have not been very helpful( Babysitter wanted,poor and predictable,Staunton Hill again poor,I Sell The Dead comedy horror,fell short on both counts,All The Boys Love Mandy Lane rubbish,Albino Farm was funny although not meant to be ) .This being the latest one,Basement Jack isn't remotely frightening,the acting was poor almost laughable,the film was so bad,I switched off before the end,my 8 year old nephew probably wouldn't be scared by this.Abbott and Costello made scarier films than the above.

I picked up this movie at Blockbuster a while ago and I wrote it on a list to come home and look up on IMDb. Reading the reviews and ratings, I was a little put off, because it only had a 3.4 star rating. After much deliberation in the movie aisle, I decided to pick it up, and I am glad I did.

Not only did I get an excellent stalk and slash film, but the characters were played with an excellent degree of scare. The character of Basement Jack is one of the creepiest horror movie psycho's out there. I think what drew me to him the most is that he wasn't some half-brained zombie stalking after people like most horror movies are nowadays. Basement Jack was just a child that was horrendously abused as a child in sick, sick ways, so he was just mentally unstable, but not stupid. There was a certain level of elegance in his stalk and slash, not just stalk, stalk, stalk, kill.

On the negative side, some of the characters were a little lacking in the acting department, but at the same time, it made them seem like actual people and not actors trying to portray people. Also there are a few small plot holes that don't really ever get summed up.

But overall, I really enjoyed this film and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys to cuddle up with their most jumpy friends and watch someone slash up a bunch of towns people.

I rate this: Definite Watch.

A boy is abused by his cruel mother (well played by Scream Queen Lynn Lowry). 11 years on, released from a mental institution, he becomes known as Basement Jack, slaughtering families during thunderstorms! Yeap! Thunderstorms. And there are a lot of them throughout this movie, to the point where the rolling sound of thunder and flashes of lightning becomes rather tedious. This is the directional debut of Michael Shelton and so when reviewing this movie has to be taken into account. He's not directed another movie since. The film makers are obviously horror fans and have tried to make a slasher movie with all of the ingredients that we know and love (sex, gore, brutality, creepy killer, atmosphere, jump shocks, etc), so I give them credit for that. However the end product is really rather mediocre at best. But trust me, there are MUCH worse slasher movies out there. We do get two Scream Queens here, Lynn Lowry and Tiffany Shepsis, so credit for that also, Sadly the bad outweighs the good: plenty of gore, but the CGI is very cheap and fake looking; during one of the kills the knife clearly misses its victim; the police are very inept, despite many of their number getting killed there is a lack of seriousness amongst the survivors; acting varies from acceptable to wooden; dull script; the film was a bit of a drag at 94 minutes. And then there's Jack, looks more like a Goth on heroin than a serious mass murderer. If you love slasher movies, or you are a fan of Scream Queens, then Basement Jack does have a little something to offer. But I for one will not be giving it a repeat viewing.

Young man is tortured with a 9 volt battery by mother as a kid and turns into a killer only during thunderstorms.

If you buy into that premise, you might also like the bad acting, horrible script, the dead victims whose eyes are literally blinking and moving on screen, and storms without rain.

I didn't.

Characters actions simply don't make sense. Not sure if you've ever licked a 9 volt battery. I have. It doesn't hurt in the slightest. You feel a dull tingle. That's how we'd test to see if they were good as kids. None of us turned into serial killers.

And why do so many of the corpses move when they're supposed to be dead?

Didn't anyone see this during the editing?

IMDD says this movie had a million dollar budget.

Where did the money go?

Let me start off by saying this movie is not the best movie out there by any means.

Its story is interesting at best and it really tries to make the killer have a personage and back story, so that you do not just see him as another murderer. On the other hand the actor playing Jack does a horrible job. To illustrate how horrible I thought his performance was, I will describe it this way: Every time I saw him on screen I wanted to gouge out my eyes with a spoon and jam chopsticks into my ears to pierce my brain so I would no longer have to see or hear anything he does ever again.If it were up to me I would run him out of town and never let him work again. Over the top? Maybe. You be the judge. It seems the only godsend of this movie was Michelle Morrow the actress playing Karen Cook. In my opinion, in these types of movies the killer should outperform the others in the sense of acting skills, but the exact opposite was the case. She was the star of the film hands down and the others are forgettable.

The only reason to see this movie is to get a chuckle out of the acting. It is a rent at best.