Jackals (2017)

Fresh and Exciting

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

It often happens that the directors stand in the place of the editors, and also the editors become directors. So it happened with Kevin Grotert, the same person who mounted all the beloved "Saw" as a "Game of Survival", and several subsequent films. But, unlike the first "Saw", in the projects "Saw 3D" and "Saw 6" Kevin acted as a director. In addition, he withdrew the "Jezabel" and the same horror "Visions" with Jim Parsons.The story of the "Jackals" or, as decided (cruel and merciless) Russian hire "Circles of the Devil" tells of a family who has gone to a small house in the middle of the forest to get his son out of the sect. The theme of the story is reminiscent of "Strangers", "You are the End!" And of course "The Last Expulsion of the Devil", but here is a much simpler concept, during which we watch an hour and a half as a guy tied to a chair sits and depicts an obsession.From the positive aspects of the film I can highlight the realistic game of Ben Sullivan and Stephen Dorff, who literally decorated the picture with his presence. As soon as it becomes smaller in the frame, the film ceases to be interesting. Even beautifully shot scenes, with a chilling blue color that enveloped the backyard and killers in masks, does not save this mediocre story."We need children ..." - may be needed, but only in this desire there is absolutely no drama, nothing that would catch the viewer. The killers copied from "Strangers" do not have their own character, they are only a murder weapon, whose story is not interesting to learn."Jackals" or, excuse me, "Circles of the Devil" - an unfinished project that looks once, and then safely forgotten.

'Jackals' drew me into seeing it, with a cool poster/cover, an slightly intriguing but very derivative premise and as someone with a general appreciation for horror. That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive. It is sadly however yet another film seen recently, hence some reiteration because the exact same strengths and flaws are here present in those films, that to me was incredibly disappointing considering its potential which it doesn't do anywhere near enough with. 'Jackals' is terrible, with a plethora of problems (huge ones too) and doesn't do enough with its potential, which was hardly small. There is next to nothing to recommend and it is the complete opposite of what the deceptive title promises.Lets start with the sole positive. The scenery is atmospheric and spooky.Unfortunately, it is not done justice by the rather direct to video schlocky way it's shot and edited, it was very clear that the film was made in a rush with no care or enthusiasm. Going on further to the negatives, the story does feel paper thin, disjointed and over-stretched and some of it feels vague, under-explained in the last third where the film especially became duller, more predictable, more senseless and less scary. Too many characters are too sketchy and with nowhere near enough to make one want to endear to them. Their annoying and illogical decision making and behaviours frustrates. Making the film feel bland and forgettable with not enough heart put into it. The effects are ropy at best, the sound quality is obvious and utilised cheaply (being too loud in the build ups and people's reactions) and it's best not mentioning the uniformly lumbering and histrionic acting, Steven Dorff is poorly used and it looked like he knew it.Dialogue can be stilted and rambling, with lots of clichés and no depth whatsoever, while the pace goes to a standstill very quickly and drags on forever, never recovering. Found too many the supposedly shocking moments not surprising or scary and the supposedly creepy atmosphere dreary, due to the excessive obviousness, a lot of dumb and vague moments and explanations and the lack of tension and suspense. Would not have minded the lack of originality (the film is extremely derivative and in a dumbed and watered down way) if the story and atmosphere were at least alright in execution, in reality they were both dreadfully done.A lot of 'Jackals' has underdeveloped plot elements and often nonsensical and confusing character motivations, while too many of the things to make you jump or shocked are far from creative or scary and are pretty tame. The ending makes the film finish on an incomplete and confused whimper, in fact it is not really an ending at all.There is not enough threat here and what there is of it tends to be used poorly, while the psychological elements are unimaginative and are more odd than scary, completely failing to show any sense of horror. Some badly sagging momentum too. The direction is leaden, got the sense their heart was not in it, and the music doesn't really fit.Concluding, irredeemably awful. 1/10 Bethany Cox

Watched this after the movie was hyped a bit on a few online horror forums and ended up being fairly disappointed.Admittedly, I'm not big on home invasion flicks as it is so take that into consideration.There doesn't seem to be any reason for the 80s setting outside of an excuse not to have cellphones. The home, clothing and style could easily be modern. The only 80s style with the filming is the grain, and the story seems more late 90s-early 00s than anything.The acting is pretty solid but the cult member brother goes a bit too far into the crazy scale and ends up coming off a bit silly.The cult members that attack look cool, but seem a bit to similar to the You're Next and Strangers villains, and it was a little frustrating to not get any detail about the cult at all, making the story seem a bit, useless maybe? They're also given little to no personality. But that seems fine with the huge personalities of the family members.The camera work on the beginning is really dark and shoddy, but the rest of the film is shot very well. The editing is good, but was this cut down significantly? With the lack of a good ending (the one present is really abrupt and does nothing for the story) and the weird edition of Matteo that's never really properly explained it seems like maybe this was chopped up a bit too much.The effects were good, of simple and not super unique. I did like the burning hands.Stephen Dorff was a nice surprise and I liked his character above the others, which turned out to be unfortunate. Props on getting him though.All in all, it certainly isn't terrible it's just not really my speed, as it's more of an action over substance home invasion which isn't really my thing, as I said before.

*May Contain Spoilers* After watching Jackals, the first thing that came to mind was that overall, it's a decent movie. It doesn't set out to win any awards, and the movie makes that evident right away. After an interesting intro that seems to have nothing to do with the rest of the story, the film starts off fast and leaves the exposition for later on. Coming from a director of two of the seven Saw films, this movie was rather tame in the gore field, which gets no complaints from me. After an easily better first two acts, the film decides to go with a predictable ending in the third act, although I will give it points for taking a road I hadn't thought of until it happened. It still reaches the same generic conclusion most slasher films decide to take, but it changed some of the minor details of that ending trope. When the credits began to roll, I didn't feel cheated of my time. Quite the opposite, I was actually left wanting a little more. Jackals is a movie that you sit down and watch with nothing but the expectation of being entertained. It doesn't deserve all the bad ratings, but it doesn't earn top marks either. So if you want to watch Jackals, go in with the expectation of being mildly entertained and you'll come out as such. If you're a slasher/home invasion lover, (or just a horror buff in general), this film is definitely worth a watch. It may not be very memorable, but in the end it is entertaining.