A hero for the ages — Trevor Matthews plays a plumber-cum-warrior in Canadian horror comedy Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer
Horror fans tend to be a nostalgic lot. Get ‘em talking about the CGI-laden and PG-rated nature of so much contemporary fare and most will get apoplectic before turning weepy-eyed over memories of the genre’s goopier days. They see the ’70s and ’80s as a golden age for low tech, an era in which fake blood and rubber intestines were in abundant supply and schlock auteurs like Frank Henenlotter, Stuart Gordon and the pre-Spidey Sam Raimi achieved the very finest of gross-outs.
A Canadian horror comedy that’s carefully tailored to these purists, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer is steeped in that old-school esthetic — we’re talking buckets of blood, exploding heads, slithery tentacles, cheeky humour and a juicy role for Robert “Freddy Krueger” Englund. Favouring prosthetic effects over digital enhancements, director Jon Knautz and his collaborators inspire much affection for their efforts, even if the results are sometimes more timid than they ought to be.
The early scenes do establish a strong balance of shocks and laughs. Trevor Matthews makes for a compelling hero-to-be as the titular Jack, a small-town plumber who’s been dealing with rage issues ever since a monster slaughtered his family while on a childhood camping trip. His efforts to get his life on track include a night class taught by Professor Crowley (Englund), a kindly sort who has the misfortune of living near the resting place of an ancient evil.
Though never bashful about capitalizing on the cachet he built up with horror fans in A Nightmare on Elm Street (which, like all beloved horror properties, is slated for a remake), Englund is in splendid form here, clearly relishing the opportunity for physical comedy as the professor transmogrifies into something nasty. Matthews is similarly appealing as an oafish but sufficiently manly defender of humankind.
It’s just too bad that Jack Brooks’s inaugural (and hopefully not final) adventure takes awhile to gather the necessary momentum. Laden with strong fight choreography and effects both ingenious and cheesy, the gore-strewn finale is sufficiently entertaining but a long time coming. While the movie’s unabashedly low-tech look and laconic humour give it greater appeal than many recent horror comedies, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer also has less of the verve and smarts that distinguished such equally nostalgic genre exercises as Shaun of the Dead and Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. However, for those viewers who feel unfairly deprived of rubbery creatures eager to eat your face, Knautz and Co. still deliver much goopy fun.
