User reviews

I am a hugeeee scary clown fan and I can't tell you how many times I come across movies with amazing covers that turn out to be dog crap. Clown movies are staples of low budget, f grade acting, and terribly written atrocities. It seems for every decent one you have to dig through 5 terrible ones. For instance some of the better ones would have to be Drive Thru, Clown, Killer Klowns From Outerspace, Terrifier, and Haunt. Just to name a few.

So where does Jack in the Box stand? I was actually quite shocked at the production value of this movie. The clown looks wonderful and the intricacies of the box itself. Although CGI in some spots. Looked really well done. This movie reminded me of Gremlin from 2017. In that it had a similar story line. And for me I also enjoyed that movie because it brought some new ideas and was pretty interesting to watch. Especially the twist at the end which I thought really made the movie. This one took some of those same principles but mixed it in with a clown and I for one am quite happy for the attempt.

The back story of demon boxes and how something like this came to be. Although pretty far fetched is quite a fascinating piece of fiction. I really like how this thing thrives on it's victims and has to be passed along in order to stay alive. It's clear they at least had a foundation for the plot line of this movie. However I would argue I wish it contained a few more layers. At times we are left trying to put together the pieces and you can't help but notice that at it's core it's pretty one dimensional. There isn't really a pay off and the ending although alright, has been done many times before in similarly told stories.

This movie also has several drawn on boring scenes. Not even important scenes that are critical to the progression of the film. More so just there to fill in the gaps and add some dialogue and character interaction. We have all seen this done countless times in movies that don't have much direction or a solid complex story that can keep things interesting. Nor do they really go out of there way to make you fall in love with any of these people to warrant such scenes. But when it counts they do give you just enough to keep watching.

The death scenes aren't amazing. A lot of times you just see people being dragged into the box. I'm sure with a bigger budget we could have had some more glorified kills. However when that clown is walking around it is quite terrifying and I cannot credit them more with nailing the way he moves and breathes.

Acting is fine in my opinion. Nobody took me out of the film nor did anyone go above and beyond. There are times where it isn't as strong as it could be. But I am not a stickler for this kind of stuff. As long as it isn't amateur hour.

If you are a fan of creepy dolls or music boxes. Puzzles or clowns. Then this is a great movie to watch if you have nothing else to do. I would say the movie itself probably deserves a 4 in it's plot progression. But it gets another point for me because that clown was so well done.

It's not gory. It's not fast-paced. It's not fancy.

They clearly spent all the budget on the box and Jack - which are nice and convincing. But they obviously hired their cousin with a DSLR to shoot it. It is recorded with ambient light and sound. So it just looks and sounds flat. That seems to be the standard nowadays in these dime-a-dozen pre-professional horror movies. So if you are looking for stimulating atmosphere, there is an echo-y, brightly sunlit, nearly empty local historical society "museum" at the center of the film.

It is also very understated in a British way. The lead actor will wind up going on to better things. He is charmingly handsome; and it is only up for him from here. He just had a peculiarly muted accent. Most of the other cast was staid and just there.

The movie had some interesting ideas. A decent protagonist. A very well-designed villain. But horror-oriented plot, suspense and execution - not so much.

Jack in the Box (2019) is a movie I recently watched on Tubi. The storyline follows a family that discovers an antique Jack in the box in their home. Little do they know this Jack in the box unleashes a creature that kills humans to survive. Once they open the box will they ever be able to close it?

This movie is written and directed by Lawrence Fowler (The Ghost Within) and stars Robert Strange (Penny Dreadful), Lucy-Jane Quinlan (Made You Look), Charles Abomeli (Torchwood) and Simon Balfour (Harlots).

This movie had so much potential and dropped the ball. The Jack has fantastic makeup, costumes, mannerisms and sound effects; unfortunately, the kill scenes are super weak, lack gore and should have been more creative. The acting is fairly mediocre and the ending is a bit predictable.

Overall this is a disappointing addition to the horror genre that should have been better. I'd score this a 3/10 and recommend skipping it.

'The Jack in the Box' had the potential to be such an awesome movie, but sadly fails.

The film's score is really good. The sound effects are good. The Jack in the box doll with its haunting eyes, is creepy. The demon clown with its scary make-up is the stuff nightmares are made off. So what went wrong? The script. This is a very basic script, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes its good to have a premise that is simple and straight forward. Only, the dialogue is pretty standard. The characters are not fully explored and not interesting at all. The events are not even interesting. The demon clown appearing for the kill felt deja vu. He had the same demeanor in every scene - and there were times when it seemed they didn't really know what he was supposed to be doing.

The Acting. Boy, the acting was bland. The film looks acted. It didn't feel realistic - as if the actors were saying their lines, and then waiting for the director's "Cut!". It looked like they were doing this for the paycheck, or for experience only. They didn't seem motivated at all. Unconvincing. Lucy-Jane Quinlan especially was really bland as Lisa. Then again, the character itself was such a dull and dreary character that one can't really blame the actress. She hardly served any purpose in the movie until the final moment.

Ethan Taylor stars as the film's hero, Casey, who also didn't really seem like he was taking it very seriously. Maybe the director was to blame, who knows, but the film lacks on too many levels. Had 'The Jack in the Box' been directed by Mike Flanagan or James Wan for instance, I think it would have been a lot better. The film just wasn't as suspenseful or captivating as it could and should have been. The film also looked like it was shot with a home movie camera. The visual effects were also basic and low budget. The main draw card here is the box, which had a great design, and the Jack.

Having said that, it also is not a bad movie. If you can overlook the flaws, sit back and allow to be entertained, I'm sure you'll find something here you like. The clown certainly is memorable, although he, too, could have been far better explored.

Surprisingly, it was followed by a sequel - 'Jack in the Box: Awakening'.

Would I watch it again? No.

Jack kept me in this, even though the story made no sense!

Why is it that so many low budget British horror films feel it necessary to have at least one American amongst the lead cast but don't employ an American actor or an actor that can do a convincing American accent? The main character here is Casey, played by Ethan Taylor, meant to be American but judging by his laughable accent he obviously isn't. I have marked this down as this is a pet hate of mine. Bad accent aside the Jack in question is reasonably creepy and there are a few half decent scares. Sadly the pace between kills is slow, some of the acting is of the wooden variety and the plot is predictable.

You could tell it didn't have a massive budget but other films manage. The villain was very good but wasn't used well. At the end he was shown like we hadn't seen him before but we'd seen him like 4 times before already so the final showdown wasn't that exciting.

Acting was very bad, and I'm not sure why they made the lead American? They also gave him a tiny bit of backstory that went no where and didn't really contribute to the story. Like I thought the cleaner and the boss were the same person.

It just all kinda made no sense and we were spoon fed all the info but it still didn't make any sense, the timings were very off.

I think with a better setting, better pacing, acting and backing story this would've been a great film.

I had not even heard about this 2019 movie when I was given the chance to sit down to watch it here in 2020. But from the movie's cover, this most definitely was a horror movie, and that was what lured me in.

Well, for a horror movie, then "The Jack in the Box" was bland and rather generic. Sure, it was a watchable movie, but writer and director Lawrence Fowler just never managed to bring the movie out of the mediocre lane.

The storyline in "The Jack in the Box" was pretty straight forward, albeit very, very generic. And it was contents that you have seen in other previous horror movies many times before; a demonic entity being caged up inside a physical box, unleashed unto the world unwittingly by someone not knowing what powers they were meddling with. From that point on, the movie was just overly predictable and followed a very generic how-to-make-a-horror movie blueprint, which left very little room for surprises and plot twists, apparently, because there were none of such in the entire movie.

I will say, however, that the demonic Jack in the Box was actually nicely made and had a good, scary appearance. But it was just a bit under-used and didn't come off as being malignant and evil enough. It felt more like just a creepy uncle creeping around in a clown costume. So writer Lawrence Fowler didn't really manage to create something that was all that spooky or disturbing.

The acting in "The Jack in the Box" was adequate, but it was clear that the actors and actresses had precious little contents to work with in terms of script and character development.

All in all, "The Jack in the Box" was a watchable movie, but it was hardly an outstanding or scary horror movie. My rating of "The Jack in the Box" is a four out of ten stars. Watch it if you have the chance and if you have a preference for horror movies, but just don't get your hopes up for a horror masterpiece. This is, however, the type of movie that you watch once, shelf it and never return to watch it again.

Jack in the Box really pulled it off. It's low budget with a small cast, but they act well and the script is well written. Admittedly a little predictable, but it's rare to find originality in anything these days.

Clearly most of the budget went into the costume and effects for Jack, which was a smart move. Simple sets, but a great monster really sells it.

And the movie's smart. It starts off strong, letting you know about the monster right from the start. No wasting an hour or more with "what ifs" or shadows. We know what's going on and the movie just jumps right in. That's how it needs to be done. Most movies waste most of their run time trying to set up a scare, which just makes them boring and pointless. Jack in the Box is enjoyable from start to finish.

None of the actors were familiar to me and that was perfectly fine. The story was creative and not like a horror film concept I've seen before. It combines the eeriness of some of our greatest fears regarding clowns and the nostalgia of a childhood toy. Excellent character creation, costuming, and movement of Jack. No foul language or gratuitous violence. Not Rated but was a film we watched with our 10 year-old. Give it a chance.

Like others have mentioned, this is a slow movie. The music doesn't fit, the cinematography isn't great, and the actors seem bored. This takes place in England, yet the lead actor is supposed to be American, but his natural English accent slips out all the time. Him being American didn't contribute to the story at all. Neither did his conflict with someone in his past dying. Good film to fall asleep to.

This film has a great box and an excellent villian. Jack's costume and the actor's movements (especially his facial movements) were a real highlight. Unfortunately, it doesn't have much else. The dialogue feels unnatural and the music score attempts to compensate for this unnatural pace of the plot. The barren set design does not help with the world building either.

Not a deal breaker but, even as a non-american, I could pick that the main character was not from the US, and it breaks the already tenuous realism built in this film.

The demon's costume and performance were fantastic though.

Watch or don't, it won't change you life.

I was going to say that The Jack In The Box is the best scary Jack-in-a-box film I have seen, on account of it being the only one, but then I remembered that I had watched Demonic Toys and Dollman vs. Demonic Toys, which aren't great, but are still better than this steaming pile of dung.

The film begins with a weak prologue that doesn't bode well for the rest of the film: a collection of poorly shot scenes sloppily edited together to introduce the 'box', home to Jack, a demonic killer clown who drags victims into his domain. Twelve years after Jack's last appearance, Casey Reynolds (Ethan Taylor) unwittingly unleashes the evil within when he discovers the box amongst donations to the village museum where he works.

Producer/editor/writer/director Lawrence Fowler (Jack of all trades, master of none) repeatedly fails to adequately set up scenes (most notably, a break in at the museum, where we're not even shown the burglars breaking in), and then abruptly cuts away from the action just as things start to get interesting. Despite an intriguing premise, his script is chock full of clichés and features dreadful dialogue, while the lack of any atmosphere or scares makes for a very dull watch.

The best things about the film are its titular box, which is like the lament configuration's big brother - kudos to the prop builder - and the clown itself, an impressively ugly creation who has real potential to be an icon of the genre. It's a real shame that Fowler hasn't the horror know-how to actually make his monster frightening.

After much bloodless tedium, replete with bad acting and more terrible editing, the film closes with a not-very-shocking Drag Me To Hell-style twist ending that is so blatantly telegraphed that even Stevie Wonder would see it coming.

2.5/10 for the box and the clown, rounded down to 2 for being a badly made bore.

I'm always looking for something to watch because I'm not interested in the TV offerings like 'Love Island' and similar. This wasn't too bad, actually. A hundred times better than a couple of others I've had the misfortune to choose and pay for in the last couple of days. A new concept in horror (well, I've not seen a Jack in the Box horror before) and not badly done. The ending was completely foreseeable and actually foreshadowed in the dialogue, so that was predictable. But not dreadful.

Surprisingly i didn't find this movie nearly as bad as everyone thinks. It isn't very good it has to be said, but it isn't super bad or anything.

The story is pretty meh at best. A haunted Jack in the Box that kills people basically. But it wasn't as bad as you would think at face value. There are horror movies such as Midsommar that people praise to the high heavens even though it's abysmal. If you believe that movie is great then this is a masterpiece. The story is poor but not unwatchable content.

The cast are fine. For a low budget "crappy" horror movie it's cast isn't all that bad. Usually the acting in these things is laughable at times but for the most part in this it was fine. Nothing amazing or spectacular but enough to get the point across.

The film wasn't scary in the slightest, so anyone looking for a scare look elsewhere. It's less scary than Paranormal Activity (and that movie is the least scary i've seen).

Story - 4/10

Cast - 5/10

Horror - 0.5/10

Overall not as bad as people make it seem but it's Definitely not a horror movie in my eyes.

Not good but not awful, 3/10.

This is a sort of movie that isn't the worst of its kind nor the best. That's why I have it a 5. Overall it entertaining enough to enjoy watching. The characters are good and so is the story though predicible.

A pretty good movie with, what seems to be an original story. Entertaining enough to keep our attention, which is something. After watching so many horror movies, you get a bit jaded, but this movie, even though it was predictable, was fun enough to keep us watching. The actors were good and believable, which for a low budget movie is commendable. Definitely worth a watch, maybe even a recommendation to those that haven't seen it yet. The monster was really believable too, with really good special effects. The jerky way he moved made his apperances even creepier than normal. We are looking forward to watching the rest in this series. I gave this movie a 5.5/10, which for me means a pretty good movie to watch at least once. Good job, Fowlers.

This was a great way a spend isolated with, just creepy enough not to scary unless ur a little kid. Fun time interesting take I look forward to a sequel Jack In The Box 2 Another 6 To Do! Fingers crossed

A low budget but enjoyable horror. The main character is a good actor and the jack in the box wasn't exactly scary but was entertaining.

I'm giving this film five stars and that is mostly down to the design of the jack in the box. Also the costume of jack himself in his monsters form was very nightmare inducing. When a man unearths a box in the ground, his wife opens it and it takes her. His accused of his murder and we skip some time ahead to a man called Casey, who gets a job showing the exhibits of a museum. Which there seems to only be one. And lisa, a woman works with him. Jack is a new exhibit and it's not long before he stars his rain of terror.the acting is nothing to happy about and the characters themself are bland. The kills are ok but really the design of jack was pretty well done ovasal.

The direction and editing is really bad. And there's always music playing all the time which never suits the scene. It's a really badly written story. Theres absolutely no reason for you to watch this movie. Instead, save yourself an hour and a half and enjoy the creepypasta story instead!

My 11 yr old son and I watched it. We did not find it scary at all and rather humoring. Ethan Taylor did a fine job at hiding his accent, yet it was very easy knowing he was not American with a few slip ups. Overall, the movie was good. Still not understanding why it would be am 18+ when I'd have thought it would be a 13+. No nudity