The Jack in the Box

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The Jack in the Box is a 2019 British horror film directed by Lawrence Fowler, starring Ethan Taylor, Robert Strange, Lucy-Jane Quinlan, Philip Ridout and Tom Carter.

The film opens with a man finding a buried box. He takes it home, but his wife is annoyed because she doesn't seem to like the object. Soon, however, a strange being comes out of that box and kills the woman before the helpless eyes of her husband. Years later, Casey, an American, arrives in a British town with the aim of rebuilding his life after the death of his girlfriend, attacked by an armed man a few months earlier. The boy begins work at an antiques museum after speaking with the owner. Here, he meets Lisa, a colleague of his, who shows him, among other things, a room where objects of dubious value are kept and therefore not exhibited. Here, Casey, who has always been passionate about antiques, however, finds a very rare book and a box that appears particularly old. As soon as Casey touches the object, it activates by pulling out a lever: the box turns out to be a particular Jack-in-the-box, whose puppet represents a decidedly disturbing clown.

That evening, while Casey and Lisa are having dinner together and getting to know each other better (Lisa reveals to him that she has a sick mother and that she does her job without any passion), two thieves break into the museum. One of them makes the mistake of insulting the clown in the box. At that moment, a monstrous being emerges from the object and kills the two thieves. The next day, Casey finds the museum door open, but otherwise the situation appears absolutely normal. Soon after, an expert in ancient objects arrives and, after having ascertained the real value of the Jack-in-the-box, tells Casey about some legends according to which some of these objects are actually the home of demons. That night, Casey suffers from insomnia because he is haunted by the memory of his girlfriend: before dying, the girl had called him but he had ignored the call, which is why he is now tormented by feelings of guilt. The next day, a customer shows up at the museum. Casey doesn't pay enough attention to her because he's too sleepy, and so, when the demon kills her, he only hears a heart-rending scream before the woman disappears into thin air.

In the following days, after having spoken again with the grumpy employer and having confided his past to Lisa, Casey notices a sign on the street displaying the photo of a woman with the word "missing". It is precisely the woman he had heard screaming in the museum. The next day, just after Casey leaves the museum, the cleaning lady is brutally attacked by the demon. When a policeman interrogates Casey to get some useful information, the boy lets slip a question about possible involvement of the supernatural in cases of disappearance, attracting the policeman's suspicions. Casey then calls Maurice, a well-known demonologist, to try to understand more. However, the expert does not answer him. Casey then decides to enter the museum at night and comes across the demon himself, who, however, spares him. After a verbal argument with Lisa, who believes that his story is just a hallucination triggered by insomnia, the boy tracks down the old owner of the Jack-in-the-box, who was once accused of his wife's murder. Casey manages to talk to him, discovering that it was the demon who killed the woman, but that no one had believed it, unjustly condemning the man.

At this point, Casey is summoned by his boss, Rachel, who decides to fire him because of his strange behavior. The alleged hallucinations had in fact been reported by Lisa, who is now furious with Rachel for her harsh decision. Casey then decides to show up directly at Maurice's house. Maurice agrees to talk to him and instructs him on how to lock the demon again, but also advises him to run away. The demonologist also states that if a tiny piece of the demon were to remain outside the box, the ritual would fail. Casey would like to escape, but an apparition of the ghost of his girlfriend orders him not to. The boy then arrives at the museum just in time to save Lisa, but does not have time to save Rachel, already devoured by the monstrous being. Casey fights with the demon and manages to trap it in the box, but one of its claws is broken by the lid and remains outside of it. Just then the police arrive and arrest Casey for murder. Lisa will testify in her favor, but she will not be believed. The girl then tries to complete the job by burying the box but, just as Casey is being interrogated and understands what is about to happen because of a photo of the crime scene depicting the missing claw, the demon comes out and devours her too.

• Ethan Taylor as Casey Reynolds
• Robert Strange as Jack
• Lucy-Jane Quinlan as Lisa Cartwright
• Philip Ridout as Norman Cleaver
• Tom Carter as Maurice Ainsworth
• Darrie Gardner as Rachel Thompson
• Charles Abomeli as David Onyilogwu
• Simon Balfour as Detective Martin
• Vinnie Clarke as Aaron Bishop
• Stacey Lynn Crowe as Gwenn Parkinson

Phil Wheat of Nerdly called the film "creepy and actually scary" and praised the "superb" production design and the score.^[1]

Michael Gingold of Rue Morgue wrote that while the film is "competently made at every level" and "deserves credit for not copping out at its conclusion, which leaves you with the kind of chill that’s too absent in what has come before", it "misses its chance to make a memorable mark on either the killer-clown or deadly-toy subgenres."^[2]

Jacob Walker of Starburst rated the film 5 stars out of 10 and wrote that while Fowler "does a decent job here, trying to develop his titular villain and make the most out of the budget and locations he has to work with", the film "sags in the middle and starts to get a little trying as the scenarios and locations fail to change."^[3]

The Jack in the Box was followed by two sequels: The Jack in the Box: Awakening^[4], and The Jack in the Box Rises^[4].

• The Jack in the Box at IMDb
• The Jack in the Box at Rotten Tomatoes