Jack-O

Mr. Jack, the Pumpkin Man, the boogeyman of the suburban neighborhood for which this movie was made (based on a story co-written and executive produced by Fred Olen Ray), might just be for real, and a kid (played by the director's son), and his family, just might be in danger. Meanwhile, people in the neighborhood suburb near Oakwood, a town of historical significance in regards to witches nearly a hundred years ago, are falling prey to Pumpkin Man, such as two snobbish Republican "bleeding heart" liberal-hating grocery owners and a trio of goof-offs messing around the hidden gravesite of a dead warlock and other past citizens of the area.

A lot of mileage out of old footage of John Carradine, Fred Olen Ray wasn't about to leave this in a bin to rot, neither was he about to just waste some cheesy "Dr. Cadavar" footage of Cameron Mitchell, as both show up in Jack-O in probably a desperate attempt to market the micro-budget horror flick on video/dvd.

I take into account the sincerity of those involved in the making of a low budget movie and try not to just poke fun at performances or cold-cock the overall direction; I do try to give each and every movie a chance. Some filmmakers and screenwriters wisely set the plot around Halloween as to attract horror fans with a direct appeal for this time of the year. I was patient with this movie, but the number of times you let a kid go to a window, only to reawaken from his sleep, only to go to the window to see the Pumpkin Man, again awakening from it in bed, my tolerance wears thin. The giant pumpkin head, and the straw protruding from his shirt sleeves, wielding a scythe, it is rather surreal and a bit laughable.

"You are like a little boy with all this scary stuff. I like little boys."

Linnea Quigley plays the hot older babysitter, and she gets her customary naked shower in the movie before moving into what her character's purpose is in the film (besides servicing her eager male audience with the customary naked shower). Besides flirting with the boy's father she's babysitting for, Quigley will, sure enough, come in contact with the Pumpkin Man. Her sister is to be her protege so Quigley can go to a later Halloween party, but things don't go according to plan... Sis rides off with her man on his motorcycle, Quigley takes the little boy trick-r-treating, and is later knocked unconcious by Pumpkin Man while trying to protect the child. At least, Quigley isn't gutted. She is given star treatment, but I'm not sure that's exactly a glamorous endorsement in a film such as Jack-O. Her fellow Scream Queen member, Brinke Stevens has a cameo as someone running helplessly from THE COVEN; it is important to the director (or maybe Olen Ray) because this is part of Dr. Cadavar's Theatre and is shown at length over and over (the boy is watching it religiously). Carradine's face is of great reliance as his character, a warlock who summoned Pumpkin Man from Hell to get revenge on the Allen family for sentencing him to a lynching, is concocted as the reason for the film's villain.

Look, I'm not about to waste my time belittling the film; I'll say that this is the kind of film Fred Olen Ray himself would have parodied gleefully in the 80s, has some animated lighting effects mimicking electrical currents that shock victims certain to leave most viewers howling, and has a decapitated head gag that leaves much to be desired. It's shlock, pure and simple. I have watched it before, was very unkind towards it in an imdb user review, and only gave it a revisit for the Linnea Quigley series I'm running in Sept 2012. I really liked Quigley in this movie and she seemed really in a good place with her character. It was at least respectable by the director to let her live for a change.

The cast includes Catherine Walsh as an ancestor of warlock Carradine, who actually helps the parents of boy, Ryan Latshaw, the father and mother played by Gary Doles and Maddisen K Krown, battle Pumpkin Man. Rachel Carter is Quigley's sister. Doles spends a lot of his time setting up a haunted garage for kids to raise money for the homeless while the kid gets a shitload of screen time thanks to dad, the movie even letting him rescue his parents.

Jack-O reminds me of movies I used to see gobbling up space on horror dvd shelves in the now-defunct Movie Gallery (the company failed to bankruptcy thanks to the damned economic collapse of 2008) brick and mortar that once was a mainstay of mine for several years before the bubble popped and the industries that once populated my town went to shit. Movies like Bleed (with Debbie Rochon) and Jack-O were taking up a ton of space as I would look for that possible low budget gem. A lot were of the quality of Jack-O, and as the VHS tapes (of another rental store named MovieTyme went bye bye) flew off the shelves (when the money ran out, and rental stores were forced to close their doors) so were the dvds, sold at cheap rates so that they would leave the building.This is the kind of movie where we see the villain take a whack at somebody, we hear the slice, cut to the victim holding his throat, spitting up a little blood, ending with the body slumping to the ground in a heap as we see the last bit of breath leave him/her.

"This is the suburbs...there aren't any dead people in the suburbs."

"I think I found something! Something old and...dead."

"Welcome to my asylum of horrors...the doctor is in!"