LITERAL REMAINS

Meet Jack Brooks, twenty-something plumber.  Jack has anger management issues; he just blows up and starts swinging fists, not caring who or what he hurts until after the damage is done.  His therapist tries to help him, but gets nowhere; Jack refuses to talk about the vicious murder of his parents and little sister at the hands of some wild, crazy-haired, monster while camping when he was a kid.  Jack is pretty sure he hates his girlfriend, who has convinced him to take night classes.  He hates his fellow classmates, except this one chick he really digs.  And he doesn’t mind the professor, or some of the people at the local hardware store.  Jack tries to control his anger outbursts, and only succeeds when he finds his true calling:  killing monsters.

Jack’s professor, played by Robert Englund (forever to be Freddy Krueger), unknowingly unleashes an ancient evil in his backyard that quickly possesses him and gives him an appetite from hell.  After eating all edibles in his house, including his best friend, he turns to his class.  That’s where Jack comes in, and that rage proves itself handy.

The three saddest things in the world are girls with ratty underwear, ugly strippers, and unfunny comedies.  As a horror fan I’m used to watching a horror movie that doesn’t scare me (I think that goes for all of us horror fans).  But when it comes to comedy, it has to make me laugh.  I chuckled twice during Jack Brooks:  Monster Slayer, and that’s just not enough.

The monsters are good in Jack Brooks, but the movie never succeeds when it comes to laughs.  Jack is the kind of movie that it is what it is and doesn’t really do much.  The monster slaying mayhem doesn’t even happen until the tail end, and by then I really didn’t care.  If I had laughed some along the ride to Jack’s destiny, that would have changed everything.

This is an admirable attempt, but falls shockingly short.  The best thing about this movie is Robert Englund.  Why isn’t he working more?  In better stuff, you know, than 2001 Maniacs and Zombie Strippers.  This is a step above those for Englund, and hopefully someone besides me will recognize what a great actor he truly is.

2 out of 5
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