It’s a Jack in the box, the Djinn, and the boogeyman in this trio of indie horror flicks that had some cool killers.
THE JACK IN THE BOX RISES (2024)
Jack is back in this third installment of the Jack in the Box movies. He’s as creepy as ever and there are satisfying kills, and isn’t that all that really matters by the third film in an indie franchise?
This time around a young woman owes a lot of money and is offered a chance to make that debt go away in exchange for one thing…she has to find the Jack in the box.
Turns out it’s in an estate that has been turned into an all-girls school. So she goes undercover as a student so she can go on a Jack hunt in between classes. She immediately makes friends…and bullies.
It’s a pretty predictable plot as students and staff begin encountering Jack and getting killed.
Eventually the girls figure out what’s going on and have to come up with a plan to stop Jack. There’s a bit of a twist at the end to change things up rather than just have old Jack stalking everyone in another generic sequel. In general, this isn’t a series that needs to continue, but with such a cool killer I’d always come back for more.
STUPID GAMES (2024)
This simple little film is sort of predictable yet keeps you intrigued, has a spooky entity that creeps in slowly and promises some real scares later on, and even has a fresh, unique looking cast that stands out in the crowd of forgettable faces in the endless stream forgettable indie horror flicks that are pumped out these day. It definitely kept my interest, and it almost works. Almost.
Three girls invite three guys over for a dinner gathering. The girls insist there must be three guy, but one can’t make it, so the other two guys bring along the geeky handyman from their apartment building.
There are weird tensions between those in the group, and it quickly becomes obvious that something is up, so we watch events unfold in hopes of understanding why the girls invited these guys over. There are even a few early signs of something ominous in the apartment. Eek!
Then the group starts to play a board game that is a mix of all different games, from Truth or Dare to Fuck, Marry, Kill. This is where the movie slows down. The board game goes on and on until the evil is finally unleashed an hour in! Eventually it’s referred to as the Djinn in passing, almost like an afterthought.
And then comes the part in which a looooong video supernaturally plays on the television exposing what led up to this party in order to give viewers an understanding of the plot. It’s unrealistic how long the group just stands there watching the video without having any reaction to what is taking place on screen. A very awkward sequence.
Finally the creepy entity begins lurking in the shadows and coming for the characters as they are forced to continue the game, and it is briefly accompanied by a fantastic 80s style synth score. That should have been the vibe of the whole movie, which just ends up slightly missing the mark—and concludes with a very odd final moment that is not in keeping with the tone of the rest of the film at all. It felt to me like the plan was to make the geeky handyman the unlikely hero, sort of like an Evil Dead Bruce Campbell character, but that idea was scratched…except in that final frame.
BEWARE THE BOOGEYMAN (2024)
Despite running 110 minutes long, this film went by pretty fast, in part because the main entity in every story is the same ghoulish boogeyman, and he’s always surrounded by very 80s horror lighting and fog machines.
The wraparound features a doctor at a psychiatric hospital learning of the shared delusion of five patients. That delusion is the boogeyman, and it’s a good thing he’s creepy, because essentially each story is simple and similar.
The first story probably should have been the third story in order to break up the cookie cutter concept, because there’s a bit of a twist when the main girl brings a guy home to sleep with her because she’s afraid of the boogeyman in her closet.
The second story should have been the first story, because it’s basically just a warm-up and is also a shorter tale. A woman starts taking a new medication, and soon the boogeyman is haunting her paintings and her house.
The third story has a good horror vibe. After a robbery gone wrong, two brothers hide out in their deceased father’s house, and the one that feels really guilty about what they did is terrorized by the boogeyman.
The fourth story is my absolute favorite. A young woman meets up with a guy thinking they’re are going to be doing a ghost hunting show. Instead, he takes her to his home, where he wants to find proof that the boogeyman killed his wife. This is the longest tale, and if it had been a standalone story without us having been introduced to the boogeyman three times already, it would have made even more of an impact. If the filmmakers had opted to just do a full-length feature rather than an anthology, this story would have worked perfectly.
In the fifth story, a struggling drug addict is told by his mother that if he’s not good the boogeyman will get him. She should have kept her mouth shut. This was another goodie.
And finally, the wraparound offers a little twist of its own. I had fun with all three of these films, but I’d say this was my fave.
