Jack Goes Home (2016)

Pretty Good

best movie i've ever seen.

Absolutely the worst movie.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

The film centers around Jacob, who is weird and defensive and maybe a jerk or maybe a misunderstood, damaged soul. Jacob's girlfriend is pregnant and then he gets a call that his father has died in an accident. So Jacob goes home. Rory Culkin as Jacob is in almost every scene and that's a good thing. Even though this film was disturbing and ultimately disappointing, I watched all of it. It kept me on the edge of my seat, wanting to know what the hell was going on. Which is part of this movie's problem: too much was going on. Had the story been stripped to its bones and had the film been cut back in length, it would've been better. As it is, it's atmospheric but frustrating and messy. It's beautifully shot and Rory Culkin was pretty amazing. I read another review saying he was basically a block of ice but I completely disagree. The leads (especially Culkin) made what otherwise would've been crappy dialogue sound natural and all round I thought the cast was decent to very good. What I don't get is why anyone would hire Natasha Lyonne or Nikki Reed to then only give them one short scene. Makes me suspect scenes were cut and somebody hadn't figured out beforehand what do storywise.

This movie's script would of been put to better use as toilet paper and left with the other excrement. If your going to attempt to make a "psychological" thriller at least take a gosh darn psychology course for a day. As for horror the only thing scary about this p.o.s. is the possibility of the writer/director making more movies. If anyone working on this film had any actual real life experiences outside of smelling of their own farts we could of had a semi descent watchable movie, but alas we have this instead. People Do NOT forget traumatic experiences, they are burned into your very soul, when your whole life is based on one you ooze it out of your every pore.

I give kudos to Thomas Dekker for writing and directing a layered psychological drama (with horror elements) that I found utterly compelling. I'm so grateful that I took a chance on it... because I hadn't read or heard anything about it. I just recognized some of the names on the cast/crew list... and now, in the afterglow, I feel like I won a cinematic jackpot.Rory Culkin, Lin Shaye and Britt Robertson all had Oscar-worthy moments in the clarity of their emotional expressions. I must also give mention to Daveigh Chase and Louis Hunter who did fine jobs as well.This movie won't be for everyone, unfortunately. But I think people who appreciate good, methodical, dramatic storytelling (and those who understand how torment can warp the psyche) should find this flick an immensely satisfying piece of art.

"Jack Goes Home" is a psychological Thriller (with some horror elements) about a boy named Jack (Rory Culkin) whose dad is killed in a car accident, after hearing the news he returns home to help his mother with the funeral and cope with the whole ordeal. As Jack struggles with the loss of his father he starts to notice strange behavior from his mother while also attempting to uncover possible secrets that his parents have been hiding from him for years. I thought the plot line was interesting enough, unfortunately the movie does a poor job of developing and delivering it. The movie is essentially about a man's struggle with the loss of his parent and his own mental instability. I like movies that dig into the human mind and really focus on one individual slowly losing it, however "Jack Came Home" does a very poor job of pulling that off. Jack is a pretty unlikable character from the get go, he's emotionless, dull, and really has no interesting character traits so to be honest I really had trouble watching him mope around and complain about everything for almost two hours. Jack's mother (player by Lin Shaye) is an interesting character and makes for some of the more interesting scenes in the movie, unfortunately she isn't featured that much.The movie tries to keep things interesting by throwing in a little bit of mystery but again they just do such a poor job of developing it, by the time big reveals are made you will have likely figured everything out and be bored with it. I saw the final twist coming a mile away, so much so that I kept telling myself maybe that wouldn't be the twist since it was so predictable. I feel like they had the right idea in a lot of places but then just completely dropped the ball in the points that mattered most. As far as indie horror movie goes "Jack Goes Home" is far from one of the worst, even though it's barely a horror movie, but it is definitely not anything to write home about. It's predictable, drab, and pretty dry overall.