Jack the Reaper

After getting involved in a bus crash on the way home from a field trip, a group of teens find themselves stuck at a haunted amusement park with a deranged, mystical killer killing them off one-by-one and forcing them to find an obscure method of survival.

This turned out to be quite a fun and enjoyable slasher that features a lot of really exciting features. One of the better elements here is the fact that this one manages to get a lot of mileage out of the creepy amusement park setting with the nightmarish scenario of only being exposed to a few select parts of the park and no matter what continually returning to the same area over and over again, all of which just makes this seem more like a dream than anything but frankly adds to a chilling vibe that washes over this section of the film. That this is where the film pretty much starts offing the characters one-by-one in rather gruesome detail is where it starts getting really good, with a lot of rather fun and exciting elements coming into play due to that with a lot of pretty chilling stalking scenes, some decent escape attempts and a series of pretty violent deaths all brought upon due to the killer's use of a pick-axe as the weapon of choice here. It adds up, along with the rather demented killer and innate sense of hopelessness to turn into a rather fine slasher more often than not. While those are the good elements, it still suffers from some pretty big flaws, including the fact that this one tends to employ the exact same gimmick as several other films do right down to the very same mode of killing done here, which is a major plot-point but is nonetheless taken from another film series entirely and rather the back-story of the killer's identity is changed around. That tends to make it feel like a rip-off more so than as an original feature, which wouldn't be as bad if the low-budget origins weren't at play. Being so cheap means that the look of this is very cramped and confined, there's not a lot of big, extended sequences and the make-up effects don't always come off as good as they should. All-in-all, though, this one seems to have more going for it than not.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and hints of child abuse.

It's interesting that this movie has such generally low numerical ratings here, but also several rave reviews. OK, given what a little-seen, low-budget effort it is, the rave reviews COULD have come from friends and family of the production itself (which was my initial suspicion), but having seen the movie, this phenomenon makes a little more sense now.

There is indeed nothing particularly new here. I won't give the "surprise" ending away, but it's one horror-movie fans have seen A LOT of, from ever since a certain low-budget film was made in Kansas in the early 1960's. The story involves a group of disparate students who have to go on a bus tour of a railroad town with their teacher after they failed to turn in a paper (OK. . .). The students are the usual types--the obnoxious jock, the black best friend, the outcast, the slutty girl, the homely girl, the overweight kid--but right away there are some off-beat elements. The fat kid has a hilariously profane grandmother (a cameo by Sally Kirkland, who also produced the film), who tells him to take no sh*t from the popular kids as she drops him off. The homely girls seems to have a strange, perhaps incestuous, relationship with her father. The girlfriend of one of the jocks tells him she's pregnant right before he leaves. The slutty girl rather than being the stereotypical "high-school slut" is actually kind of a sweet, troubled girl who has been taken advantage of by the jocks at her school (maybe some shades of reality there). There are also TWO black guys, and, rounding out their numbers, a deaf girl.

They stop at a visitor's center and meet curator Tony Todd who does his usual thing in an extended cameo and warns them of the legend of "Railroad Jack". Soon after they're involved in a bus crash and their teacher disappears. They take refuge in this this strange deserted carnival sideshow that is out in the middle of the desert for some reason where they are stalked by the creepy, eyeless "Railroad Jack". This is the other strength of the movie (besides the more interesting than usual teen characters),the deserted carnival is genuinely creepy. This is the rare modern-day horror film that actually relies on ATMOSPHERE as opposed to CGI gore and silicone breasts. True, some of the acting is awful (the performance of the actor playing the overweight kid is especially egregious). I never miss CGI effects, but a lack of female nudity can't really be considered an asset to a horror film either. But given there is only one particularly attractive girl here (Hope Jaymes, who plays the vulnerable slut) and she obviously has real breasts (only women with silicone breasts ever seem to do nude scenes in modern-day horror movies) the movie at least doesn't tease you with the promise there will be any.

There is some ill-conceived narration at the beginning and the end, and the end doesn't entirely work. Still, I found this to be refreshingly old-fashioned and off-beat and interesting in places. It's much better than the numerical reviews would suggest if not quite deserving perhaps of some of the more hyperbolic raves. It's worth seeing anyway.

A bus load of misbehaving teens find themselves in a sinister funfair, but they are being watched by ... something, or someone.

Tony Todd, who features briefly here, seems to have earmarked himself a career appearing in films like this. Modest productions that occasionally attempt to offer something new. In that, 'The Accursed' partially succeeds.

The usual collection of bratty kids is given slightly more depth than usual, their backstories making them more than the usual cyphers this kind of film usually features. This doesn't stop them from being irritating, but at least they're supposedly meant to be; damaged youths, as opposed to permanently drunk/horny teens.

The setting is what makes this stand out. I find seaside towns, funfairs, circuses and the like incredibly sinister when 'out of season', or, as here, simply abandoned. The funfair setting is quite well utilised. The story has enough twists and turns to keep it interesting. My score is 6 out of 10.

This film was produced by mad crapper productions (seriously, why would you name a production company, mad crapper anyway?) which does not surprise me why this film is totally crap.

What kind of a genius would write a slasher script where NOTHING happens for the first 60 MINUTES???? Yes, almost 60 minutes! Not 3-5-10 or even 20. I understand the character development but boy, you could develop the frigging citizen kane in 60 minutes, leave aside a slasher movie character.

You can maybe now understand how bad this movie is. From start to finish it's a painful 80 something minutes and even if you can bear till the end, you will see that you were right about guessing the stupid twist coming from 60 miles away.

The story is about a bunch of high school students who are on a school trip to study the industry revolution and on the way, they encounter with a maniac who starts offing them one by one with a pick axe.

Although the story sounds like a regular teen slasher, the script and directing is so bad that it makes it almost impossible to watch it till the end. The characters are extremely annoying and very unattractive for a screen cast, makes you wonder if they all accepted to play for free, in exchange of an IMDb credit.

I don't know you, but I love slashers mainly because of the high tension, original killings, hot chicks and surprise twists. I can assure you that this movie has NONE of them. All the killings are off screen, a little bit of blood is spattered on the camera, that's all the visual effects you get from this flick. There's no nudity or gore or any actress whom you may think she is a cliché hot slasher chick.

Now I'm not saying that heads should explode, guts should be torn or the students should go for an orgy, but why the hell are you bothering to shoot a slasher movie, if you are not going to show any of the killings??? This is like shooting an action movie where the camera never shows an actor actually firing a weapon!

All in all, please do not let the fake rave reviews written by the cast and/or their families trick you. You are really better watching your turd float in the toilet ,rather than watching this one. Just forget about it and watch something else instead.

Unbelievably awful acting, directing and script!

1/10

So I just watched this movie. It wasn't particularly great, but I guess the short time Tony Todd is in the movie makes it worth it. Basically these high school kids get stuck on a Saturday morning field trip to make up for a writing assignment that they didn't do. None of them are particularly happy about it, but they don't want to repeat the grade. We're treated to quick introductions as to these "troubled" kids and their plights(Which on the by and by are never really used in the film, or even brought up later). Anyway, the kids end up going to this railroad museum which is where we get a small dose of Tony Todd and his wonderful creepiness, but alas it does not last. After leaving the museum the kid's bus crashes and they are suddenly alone the broken down bus in the middle of nowhere, when they see a carnival. Of course madness follows. The film is pretty predictable, has average to crappy acting, and all the effect budget pretty much goes into one thing(You'll know it when you see it). I have to admit the idea was good, but the lack of budget and poor execution brought the thing as a whole down. If you have nothing else to watch, or just watch pretty much any horror movie that comes out(I'm guilty of this) it may be an all right way to kill some time. Otherwise you may want to skip this one.