Director/Screenplay – Kimberly Seilhamer, Producers – Sally Kirkland, Sheri Reeves & Douglas Tait, Photography – Reinhart Peschke, Music – Deeji Mincey & Boris Zelkin, Reaper Makeup Creation/Design – Barney Burman, Art Direction – Russell Michael. Production Company – Mad Crapper Films.
Cast
Jay Gillespie (Shawn Hickey), Amber Zion (Maya), Tyler Wolfe (Steven Hickey), Andrew Olson (Brian ‘Casper’ Callahan), Alexander Holder (Jesse), Tony Todd (Mr Steele), Christopher Raff (Harold), Hope Jaymes (Sommer), Richardson Chery (Andre), Douglas Tait (Railroad Jack), Grace Jiyoung Park (Trudy Yoo), David Beeler (Mr Smith), Jamal Draco (Tyler), Shanti Ryle (Heather), Sally Kirkland (Harold’s Nana)
Plot
A group of students depart from Charon High School on a field trip. At the museum stop-off, the strange attendant Mr Steele tells them the legend of Railroad Jack, a boogeyman that haunted the railways. The fearful Jesse thinks she sees a figure following them in the desert just before the bus crashes. The group pick themselves up but the teacher Mr Smith has vanished. They find a nearby carnival but this proves to be abandoned. As they explore the carnival, the figure of Railroad Jack comes hunting them and eliminating their numbers.
Jack the Reaper was the one and only film directed Kimberly Seilhamer. Elsewhere, Seilhamer has written the scripts for a couple of other films, The Heyman (2001) and Inside Irvin (2004), although these do not appear to be widely seen. Seilhamer has managed to rope on board a 71 year-old Sally Kirkland, who produces the film and also plays the role of nerdy Christopher Raff’s grandmother.
For a B-budget film, Jack the Reaper has an undeniable competence and professionalism as it sets out. Kimberly Seilhamer makes an effort to characterise the teens and their assorted banter. All give capable performances – indeed, the most bizarre performance comes from the film’s most well-known figure of Tony Todd who plays his single-scene appearance with an over-the-top theatricality.
Douglas Tait as Railroad Jack
You get the impression that the filmmakers obtained the use of an off-season Carnival (located somewhere in Mojave desert area of California). Apart from a few scenes towards the start and the stop off at the museum, more than two-thirds of the film takes place at the fairground location. The disappointment that sets in in this half is that the film is no more than the teens running around the abandoned fairground attractions being killed by a Boogeyman figure. These scenes are fairly repetitive and do mothing to take the plot anywhere.
To considerable disappointment, Jack the Reaper eventually reveals its hand as [PLOT SPOILERS] yet another Deathdream film. It is a twist ending that seems heavily and obviously foreshadowed – a Charon High School, for goodness sake, and in Tony Todd’s ominous warnings. This is a twist ending that has been overused to tedium in films such as An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1961), Carnival of Souls (1962), Seizure/Queen of Evil (1974), The Survivor (1981), Siesta (1987), Jacob’s Ladder (1990), and host of others as well as, of course, The Sixth Sense (1999).
