I can’t resist watching all these low budget slasher franchises that keep coming out of the UK indie horror scene these days. The Jack and Jill movies even feature several of the same actors from the other franchises I’ve covered.
THE LEGEND OF JACK AND JILL (2021)
In the opening scene, young Jack and Jill literally go up a hill while running away from a man chasing them and their mother.
15 years later, a group of friends goes camping in the woods to mourn the death of their friend. There’s relationship drama as always in these friend group slashers, but the highlight here is that the cute main guy is gay and totally hot for the other, hunky guy in the group, landing this one on the does the gay guy die? page.
There’s a bit too much sappy grieving dialogue, but generally the pacing is carried along by one friend after another going off into the woods and getting killed by Jack and Jill, who are now adults, feral, and looking kind of like zombies. However, this isn’t exactly a suspenseful slasher, and most of the death scenes are cutaway kills with little gore.
The survivors end up taking on Jack and Jill in their lair, with the promise of a sequel….
JACK AND JILL: THE HILLS OF HELL (2022)
This one opens with friends experiencing car trouble on the way to a concert. This establishing scene is more atmospheric and suspenseful than anything that happened in the first movie.
But alas, despite being from a different director, the rest of this film doesn’t feel much different than what we got in the first movie. Most noticeable is that a different actress plays Jill, and the horror makeup on both her and Jack is not good. It looks cheap. Also, there’s no hunk and no homo. Bummer.
We get a flashback to the first movie when the friends were discussing the legend of Jack, Jill, and their mother—details that play a crucial role by the end of this movie.
In this film, a search party goes camping in the woods to look for the missing daughter of one of the women. Soon, Jack and Jill are picking off more victims. Jill has a better grip on the English language, the kills are once again flat with no gore, and there are no chase scenes, which is disappointing after the strong opening scene.
In the end, the mother of the missing girl ends up in Jack and Jill’s lair and tries to reason with them. There’s an attempt here to build sympathy for Jack and Jill. It makes sense and is kind of sad, but it’s also a bit hokey.
JACK AND JILL 3 (2023)
Another new Jill, same Jack, different director again, but continuity remains pretty consistent.
This one starts out with clips of kills from the first two movies then moves into an odd lesbian sex scene between a teacher and her female student before Jack and Jill make their initial appearance.
It’s supposed to be 10 years later, and a live stream crew is looking to explore the legend, so they go to where the murders took place in the past.
Once again there’s some backstory as the cast of the show chats. There are some ego issues and more lesbian drama, but other than that, this one is slow until an hour in, at which point it starts to feel like an old school slasher, with a bunch of girls running and screaming through a house as the killers infiltrate, killing some and abducting others. Notable is that Jack finally finds his voice and does some talking.
Unfortunately, the whole Jack and Jill thing is getting repetitive, but I imagine that’s not going to stop them from making another sequel.
