The Jack In The Box Rises

Those of you who grew up in the 80´s might remember a children´s TV show called Jack In The Box on The Children´s Channel, i always thought that clown popping up from the box was creepy and my little sister watched this show back in the day. On this children´s show a hostess would present different cartoons while looking at pictures that children sent from all over the world, also giving best birthday wishes if one of the children had a birthday. I can´t remember all the cartoon shows that were shown on Jack In The Box but i do remember they used to play Nellie The Elephant and Paddington ( this is definetely a British classic cartoon show ) as well Postman Pat ( we even had the video game Postman Pat on our Amiga 500 computer that my sisted played ). The Children´s Channel continued on air up until 1998 and by that time i was too old to be interested in this TV channel. The only animated films i was interested watching during this time was MANGA movies and similar violent animated TV series. I did see the Pixar animated film A Bug´s Life in cinema back in 1998 with my youngest cousin at that time, he was 15 years old and he loved animated films from Pixar and Disney as well. The memory though of the bouncing clown from the TV show Jack In The Box from the 80´s did stay in my mind and would follow me for many years. Let´s move forward many years to the year of 2020 and the clown in a box would get a whole new meaning thanks to one specific film. A British independent horror film called The Jack In The Box would tell the story of a demon clown that comes out of a very unique box. Directed by Lawrence Fowler this turned out to be one of the bigger surprises for me during that year and i especially loved the make up effects of the demonic clown. The Jack In The Box told a simple story regarding a museum and how people suddenly disappeared as they found out that this box contain something very evil who is behind all of these killings, the demonin clown basically took the bodies into his box. A sequel called The Jack In The Box: Awakening was released in 2022 and i enjoyed it. Directot Lawrence Fowler tried to add certain details to this sequel compared to the first film while it was easy to recognize the style of the first film. So here we are in 2024 with the third film which makes this a franchise by now. I just had to pick up a DVD copy of The Jack In The Box Rises from the UK and give the film a chance. Is this a great sequel to The Jack In The Box or have director Lawrence Fowler lost the magic that the first film and the previous sequel had?

Raven ( Isabella Colby Browne ) is sent to England to find a very old unique Jack-In-The-Box since criminal Harvey ( Derek Nelson ) is keeping Raven´s father captive until she can get the box from England that he is looking for. She have no other option but to travel there to all-girls boarding school pretending to be a student. It turns out that this will not be as easy as it might seem.

Let´s be honest right from the start and say if you are looking for a completely different kind of independent horror film with a unique twist, you will not find that here with The Jack In The Box Rises. However, if you are a fan of the previous films and appreciate the work of director Lawrence Fowler i have a feeling this is a film that might please you. I feel that this film captures the right atmosphere of The Jack In The Box franchise where once again the demonic clown is clearly the strongest part of this film as well. While some other indepenent horror films struggle to have interesting characters you can clearly see that director Lawrence Howler want to keep this evil creature the main course of the evening, especially since he is the one enjoying ripping apart human flesh and feast on it. Speaking about the demonic clown he have become more brutal, and i like this progress indeed. This time however the demonic clown Jack is played by a different actor Nicholas Anscombe ( who played Doctor Clarke in The Jack In The Box: Awakening ). I would say he does a solid performance considering the costume and makeup effects. One actress who surprised me for doing her first full feature film is Lisa Antrobus playing the character of Principal Hinch. Considering this being her first motion picture i would really like to see her acting in future films, something tells me could be good as other characters as well. Actress Isabella Colby Browne have acted in short films mostly but definetely show shes on the right path if she continue doing natural characters like Raven in this film. Ok so anything negative to say? Maybe not as effective from a horror perspective as i felt the first film to be. Im not saying this film fails with the horror elements in any way, i just would have liked it to be even more creepy. Since this is now a franchise i would still say that this third films manage to deliver enough horror entertainment for us who appreciate independent horror films. Director Lawrence Fowler proves once more he knows how to construct horror films without being too silly. If you love demonic clowns and blood then you have come to the right place. The Jack In The Box Rises is exactly the kind of side dish you have been waiting for, crispy and tasteful enough to enjoy a pleasant evening.

Rating: DDD