"Jackals," a horror film that takes place in 1983, is, according to the filmmakers, based on true events. How much a film follows reality and how much it wanders into the fringes of fiction is often difficult to judge. There's no question that it would have been better with this missed attempt at horror to tell the audience the truth: This film is based on almost every horror film of the last few decades.
From an opening that looks like a film student's take on the first scene in "Halloween" to the familiar animal masks used to hide the cult members who terrorize a family, "Jackals" is less of a horror film and more of a drinking game where a shot is taken when similarities to other movies pop up � and they pop up more than the kernels in a bag of microwave popcorn.
Writer (and the term is used extremely loosely here) Jared Rivet's uninspired script starts with a long opening shot of a mysterious stranger breaking into a house. The inhabitants are such sound sleepers that they don't hear the interloper rummaging through the dresser drawers or snipping bits of hair from a sleeping female. This all leads to a gruesome scene that looks like it belongs with another movie. This is Rivet's first script to be made into a feature film, a sad commentary on how hard it must be in Hollywood to find good material.
Rivet's inspiration gets even flatter as the movie shifts to a family drama where two men in ski masks attack and kidnap Justin (Ben Sullivan). The kidnappers are the young man's father, Andrew (Johnathon Schaech), and a cult de-programmer Jimmy Levine (Stephen Dorff), who take Justin to a cabin in a remote part of the woods (so remote there is no TV reception. The horror!) where he is to be subjected to a program to negate the brainwashing done by a cult.
As with films from "Straw Dogs" to "Wolf Creek," the best intentions of the family are thwarted when the cult members arrive. Rivet's script never bothers to explain how the cult members found the group or why Levine is supposed to be a de-programming specialist. He also apparently didn't even consider the possibility the cult would come after Justin; more security precautions would have been wise. Of course, that kind of logical thinking would bring this dull tale of terror to an early end.
Director Kevin Greutert � who has worked on horror films in the past including "Saw 3D: the Final Chapter" and "Saw VI" � shows the same lack of enthusiasm and energy that Rivet displayed in writing the script. Greutert's idea of scary moments is having someone run across the roof of the isolated home or having all the cult members stand with perfect backlighting as if they were a boy band ready to take the stage.
"Jackals" has the look of a production made from a script with zombie qualities. Everything that's done is brainless, moves slowly and is always seconds away from dying. Rivet sets up a situation where he has a small army of murderous cult members surrounding a house occupied by a family who turn to golf clubs as their first line of defense. This is a fight that should have been over in minutes but drags along as Greutert tries to create one original moment.
Even his "gotcha" ending is so telegraphed, the newborn in the movie could see it coming.
Each scene in "Jackals" echoes similar moments in "The Purge," "Wrong Turn," "House of the Dead," "Green Room" and so many other titles. Adding to the horror flashbacks are the masks the cult members wear that look a lot like those worn in "You're Next." Even a little effort would have made this film the tiniest bit scary.
The closest Rivet and Greutert come to a saving moment is a scene where family members try to decide who is to blame for allowing Justin to be pulled into the cult. In the end, Justin probably knew that hanging around with anyone else � even killer cult members � would be better than these bland family members.
Even if "Jackals" had been a direct-to-video release, it would have fallen into the category of "rent something else." The film is a plodding example of what happens when a lifeless script meets an uninspired director and is presented by actors who all have the same look of wanting to be the first one killed so the horror of being part of this mess will come to a merciful end.
