Jackals ★★½

HORROR films don’t come much grimmer than Kevin Greuert’s Jackals.

This 2017 release starts with a disturbing, first-person slaughter of a family and ends with a bloody siege.

In between Greutert, the director of two Saw films and editor of six, doesn’t spare the audience with a nihilistic, minimalist treatment.

For some unexplained reason the film is set in the 1980s. The opening murders also don’t appear to be related to anything that follows andare just there for shock value.

The story proper starts with the roadside kidnapping of Campbell Powell, the estranged son of Kathy and Andrew.

Campbell has been brainwashed by a cult and the family has enlisted a de-programmer to help them forcefully bring him back to reality and their love.

Also at the house where Campbell is brought are his brother Jason and his girlfriend Samantha and their baby.

It quickly becomes evident that de-programming Campbell will be difficult as he spits and screams obscenities and warns they will all be killed when his ‘true’ family comes to rescue him.

That ‘true’ family are an unnamed, silent and masked group who lay siege to the house. The Powells defend themselves, Straw Dogs style, with shotgun, knives, axes, glass and even pans of boiling fat.

Not everyone’s cup of tea I know, but it’s efficiently presented, particularly some of the photography, sound effects and Anton Sanko’s music score, and generally well acted.

The final chilling scene is in keeping with the dire, fatalistic approach. This is a nasty but effective horror film making Greutert a director to watch.