Five-Legged Iguana

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2017

Candidate #4

JACK GOES HOME

(March 2016)

"I always thought this house was haunted.”

"Really? Why?”
"I don’t know. Ever since we were kids, it just felt like there was some dark vagina just hovering over this place, waiting to swallow me up.”

“Maybe it was just your latent homosexuality talking, hmmm?”

“Shut up. I’m being serious. I’ve always been scared here, dude.”

For much of its initial section of running time, Thomas Dekker’s Jack Goes Home plays more like a dysfunctional domestic drama than anything else, as the titular Jack Thurlow (Rory Culkin) receives some tragic news that precipitates his--as the film’s title indicates--return to his family home.

But, since this is ¡Qué horror! territory, it’s a safe bet that that’s not what the film is ultimately about.

Or, put another way, maybe it is a dysfunctional domestic drama, but in a really terrible, horror movie way, as we slowly witness Jack uncover some dark family secrets, while gradually questioning his sanity…

Dekker (who also wrote the screenplay, and is perhaps best known as the TV John Connor) ropes in some noteworthy genre names here, including Daveigh Chase, Natasha Lyonne (who appears in a brief, single scene), and Britt Robertson (who’d worked with Dekker previously on the short-lived The Secret Circle).

But the genre coup here is, without a doubt, Lin Shaye, who appears as Jack’s mother, Teresa.

And, oddly enough, while Dekker is also credited as one of the film’s producers, who do we see credited as an Executive Producer but Uwe Boll (!).

Parting Shot:

I honestly did not recognize Daveigh Chase here, until the end credits rolled…

So, yeah, Samantha Darko (Sparkle Motion, go!!!) and Samara, in the house!

And speaking of, 15^th anniversary of Donnie Darko! Huzzah!

(Jack Goes Home OS courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com.)