Jack-O

source: Jack-O

I hope this group of film-makers never re-unites.

This thing, it shouldn't be called a film, is almost worse than "Manos", but you just have to see it it's hilarious. If you see it at video store rent it, if you see the 10th anniversary edition, yes there is a special edition, for under $10 buy it, if your friend has it borrow it, you just have to see this. The acting is so bad, and the gore is is so fake. After viewing this you'll be asking yourself why did they make this insult of the art of film? That's assuming your face doesn't melt off like the Nazis's in "Raiders" . If you manage to see this, be sure to vote this movie as 1 (awful) so it can make the bottom 100, it really deserves a spot there. I'm surprised it's not number 1, right now.

*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT* I bought this video for three bucks. My brother had told me about this one because he had actually met Jack-O. Yes, the dude in the pumpkin mask. B-movie giants walk amongst us. I had to behold the cinematic genius that was "Jack-O" so I could live vicariously through my brother. I can honestly say that "Jack-O" went exactly like I thought it would. There was not one thing that surprised me about this flick. Well, that's not completely true. I was surprised to see Linnea Quigley in this one. And everybody can relax, she does take a shower. Quigley and showers. Peanut butter and Jelly. So Jack-O comes back from the dead to kill a stoic boy for some reason or another. You'd think that the kid would get a little emotional about a pumpkin man trying to carve him up. Would a scream kill him now and then? Anyway, Quigley babysits him and Pumpkinhead trashes the party. "Jack-O" follows the B-movie playbook step by step. Blood, breasts, bad acting, repeat. If you're a B-movie fan, you'll find something to like.

I've always loved horror flicks. From some of the usual well-known like "The Exorcist" to some of the more underrated like "Black Christmas" or "Just Before Dawn". But who are people kidding,even calling this trash a b-movie. It's straight up bottom-of-the-barrel Z-grade. The acting is the worst ever on film. Really,I've seen better on an episode of the "Young and the Restless"...SPOILER...Lookout for when the woman comes to tell them about the legend of Jack-o. She pauses sometimes for a matter of seconds as if someone is flashing her cue cards and she's struggling to read her lines. A RIOT! Oh,and besides the bad acting,absolutely no gore or F/X. And Jack-o looked like a plastic lit pumpkin. Watch Linnea Quigley in "Night of the Demons",or "Silent Night,Deadly Night",far superior flicks.

A while back, my friend and I went to get a horror film of ghetto proportions, and found this gem in our local video store. We could not have been more delighted! This movie is the absolute best to make fun of, and just have a good clean laugh at! The acting is quite possibly worse than an elementary Christmas show (personal favorites: The pure "terror" when the little boy is being buried alive and the wife of the man in old times who goes off to kill Jack-O). The producers of this movie blew their budget on the opening lightening sequence, making the other effects laughably fake. If you're looking for a horror movie, keep moving on. But if you want to have some good fun laughing at and making fun of a movie so bad that the participants must hang their heads in shame to know it resides on their resumes? You have found it.

Story involves ancient demon being released upon a small town on Halloween night. In all my life I have never seen such a cheesy film, but it is so d**m entertaining you can forgive its bad acting, effects, direction, and script. This is the best movie created for the Halloween season since the original Halloween. And when they introduce Linnea Quigley's character for the first time, she is butt naked in the shower for like 5 mins. Goodness they just don't get any better than this. Rush and buy this tape right away. 5/10

Ugh. Pretty awful. Linnea Quigley gets top billing, but her character doesn't have a big part. Who is her character supposed to be anyway, the little boy's aunt? Another user commented on her getting * in a shower scene. While there was a shower scene in the movie, it was a head and shoulders shot. Perhaps there are some alternate versions of this movie. Quigley does have a bigger part than John Carradine, Cameron Mitchell, and Brinke Stevens, though. Carradine shows up briefly in a monkish robe reciting vague dialog. No other characters are in the scene with him, though he's sort of composited in, or else there are over-the-shoulder shots unquestionably belonging to someone else. There's also a really bad photo of him in a cameo locket (it looks like a bad photocopy), and a decent picture of him in a family bible. He conjured up Jack-O originally, or something like that. Cameron Mitchell briefly shows up on a TV as a TV horror host. Brinke Stevens is in the movie he's showing "The Coven," in which she runs around a cemetery in a robe. Evidently there's more of the Brinke footage as a bonus feature on the Retromedia DVD double feature Mark of the Witch/The Brides Wore Blood. Jack-O: what's it about? Darn if I know. A little boy is told a story about a pumpkin-headed demon killer, and he and some other kids are scared by a woman they think is a witch for some reason. She follows him home and offers to help his family with their haunted garage for Halloween (put your hand through a hole and feel eyeballs that are actually grapes, etc.). The pumpkin-headed killer shows up several times to hold onto branches while he watches people, or hold his scythe in front of the camera and pose with it for a while. Sometimes he manages to do more than just stand around holding things, and actually kills people. There are also some flashbacks to a western or prairie family, with the little boy playing the little boy in that family too: ancestors of his, I think. I think they figure into Jack-O's backstory, but I'm not sure how. The little boy is ostensibly the main character, but we don't really learn anything about him except that he wears glasses, has nightmares, and will fight bullies even if he'll get beat up in the process. More time should have been spent establishing his character. I couldn't have cared less if he died. Not recommended, not even for Halloween.

Jack-O is the type of movie you rent on a Friday night and enjoy with friends. I liked it not just because of the cheese factor. But also because It's has my two fav scream queens in it. Linnea Quigley and Brinke Stevens. Linnea did a bang up job in this movie. I was actually surprised because her acting so good. And it interesting to see Brinke in a cameo role as a witch. But there were some cool death scenes and I liked the way it was shot. 16mm. My favorite besides digital. Anyway, just rent this movie and eat some pizza. Make sure it's extra cheesy!!!

"Jack-O" was scripted by my good friend Brad Linaweaver, so I'm prejudiced in its favour. Low-budget film-maker Fred Olen Ray had a few minutes of footage of John Carradine sitting in a forest at night, and a bit more footage of Cameron Mitchell staring into a camera and telling a spooky story. Ray challenged Linaweaver to write a feature-length script using these snippets of footage. Carradine and Mitchell appear VERY briefly in "Jack-O", and not together. "Jack-O" is a bog-standard spookfest. Jack-O-Lantern is a homicidal maniac who died in arcane circumstances but who still comes back for one night every year: guess which night. Yes, Hallowe'en. The crucial (dual) role in this film is a small boy in modern times who's related to Jack-O's first victim (also a small boy) from more than a century earlier on. When I saw that the child actor cast in these roles (Ryan Latshaw) is the son of the film's director (Steve Latshaw), I expected a vanity production. But young Ryan is actually a decent actor: in this film at least, his performance is better than his dad's directing. I always expect zero production values in a film like this, so I was pleasantly astounded by the realistic 19th-century prologue. Brad told me that this was filmed in an historic village in Florida. Unfortunately, the first few minutes of the film look much, much better than anything afterwards. There are several very attractive actresses in this film, notably scream queen Linnea Quigley as the heroine, and Catherine Walsh as a "bad girl" who MIGHT have supernatural abilities. Untalented Helen Keeling is attractive, but she speaks her dialogue with one of the most bizarre accents I've ever heard. There are some REALLY grotty special effects: notably the lightning (why didn't they use a stock shot?) and the scene in which one character gets electrocuted. I've seen more realistic electrocutions in Tex Avery cartoons. The post-dubbing of the soundtrack is worse than it really needs to be for this low budget. "Jack-O" isn't very good, but it isn't nearly bad enough to be one of those Ed Wood-ish camp classics. I strongly recommend it as a study aid for those who want to learn "Bowfinger"-style film-making techniques. And some of the actresses are very watchable. Otherwise, "Jack-O" is a Joke-O. For thrills and chills, look elsewhere.