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One EVIL AI Knows Our Ultimate Fears, We’re all Doomed! “Jitters” reviewed! (Reel2Reel Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

After being suspended for roughing a fellow detective, Collymore returns to the middle of a nightmarish case of people killing themselves within the throes of their worst fears.  Struggling through a terminal health issue and sharing his young daughter in shared custody, Collymore focuses his efforts on the case with evidence pointing directly toward a new immersive video game called Jitters that uses brain scans and artificial intelligence to infiltrate the network of the human brain.  A maniacal clown with a twisted sense of humor and electrifying headgear presents players with a riddle and if they can solve it, players will be free from his delusion-creating hold that’ll eventually send a person gravely mad to death with fear.  Collymore plays the game to try and stop Jitters from spreading across the city, protecting his daughter from being exposed, but he must investigate through a team of infected developers puzzled by their tailored riddle before they meet their fate. 

Clowns are not a new trope to horror – “Killer Klowns from Outer Space,” “Funhouse,” and we can even through in the infamous, now-mostly banned “Clownhouse” – but in the past five years there has been a reemergence of the killer clown, thanks to one Art the Clown of the “Terrified” films who put the funny bone back into the assortment of removed human bones with a bone saw.  “The Jester,” “Clown in a Cornfield,” and “Helloween” use the bright blue, red, white face paint to mask their malevolent Jokesters outside the circus tent and into our safe space to crank up the coulrophobia in “Terrifier’s” wake, and perhaps with a little help from Pennywise in the “IT” remakes.  “Jitters” is the next clownsploitation feature with a sophomore screenplay by George Wilcox (“Homeless Ashes”) and directed by Marc Zammit (“Witch”).  The 2016, United Kingdom film is an Aptitude Films production and crowdfunded by Indiegogo patrons with nearly £13,000.

In the role of a Jitters, the clown face riddler with ostentatious electro-lit up headgear, is Daniel Jordan (“Witch,” “Embryonic”) harnessing his best virtual AI assistant from Hell, infiltrating every software system to organic system with mischievous jester poise with wicked wordplay.  Jordan can be jaunty enough to make the clownish killer be mad with a “Virtuosity” spread of fear through the global cyberspace network but there’s room for terror toying improvement as the fear doesn’t carry over much to the audience.  Opposite Jordan is Fabrizio Santino (“Are We Dead Yet,” “Witch”) as the black sheep detective Collymore hot on his first case back with the investigation of a girl scared to death while playing a computer game.  Santino’s low gruff and breathy tone naturally gives me the leg up on Collymore’s terminal ailment that has the detective coughing up blood in private.  Yet, that illness never has a purpose to the story other than to garner sympathy from ex-wife Julia (Lauren Budd, “Cinderella’s Curse”).  As Jitters rival, or as another play in the Jitters deadly game, Collymore’s determination to beat the AI clown levels the playing field but the detective is hardly challenged by Jitter’s strong and influential manipulating powers others succumb so easily to in their own version of fear-induced hell.  “Jitters” supporting cast rounds out with Boo Miller (“Afraid of the Dark”), Guillaume Rivaud (“Big Bad CGI Monsters”), Jessica Impiazzi (“The Tombs”), Russell Shaw (“The Lockdown Hauntings”), Richard Wisker and introducing Chloe Hews.  There’s also Anto Sharp (“Witch”) who I follow as a comedic content creator and who did a phenomenal job as Collymore’s partner as I did not realize it was content creator Sharp, suggesting good acting to step into a less funny role. 

“Jitters” is not a direct riff on the “Terrifier” series or any other notable previous killer clown movie but adding a clown mascot to a not-so-carnivalesque AI program can seem like a bandwagon move to cash-in on clownsploitation craze that’s currently happening.  However, with the “Brainscan” edge to the story, the clown getup has unnecessary written all over it.  What Jitters does very well is the themes it tackles, such as video game brain rot, an artificial intelligence takeover, and facing one’s fears no matter how overwhelming they can be.  Jitters, the clown, toys with players’ intrinsic fears that can affect so much on a granular level that they don’t even know exactly what they’re afraid of and that gives the narrative more suspense when time ticks away toward an inexplicable runout threshold and the clown brings an end to the game in stylish fashion involving their fear.  There’re some on-screen gory bits but “Jitters,” overall, is tame on the blood and violence that leaves a few moments to the imagination but leaves just enough to sate the primal, gut-level reaction.  While the story adds a layer of hypothetical futuristic technology that doesn’t quite make sense when you think about it but glad to indulge for the sake of movie progression, I found more distracting detective Collymore’s life complexity to be a softball toss up that never challenges his being or puts his back against the wall.  Collymore evokes workplace violence against an unscrupulous, yet lawfully acquitted, officer that goes without receiving himself a severe managerial punishment for socking him in the office other than some unpaid leave, Collymore also has terminal cancer that’s a narrative non-key element that spurs no action and no conflict.  Lastly, ex-wife Julia gives him too little pushback on their former marriage and how he raises their daughter when she’s with him, and there’s an almost near reconnection between them that’s hastened toward dye to the lack of contention in what’s mostly amiable co-parenting.  Julie and their daughter Chloe never face true peril and have become also naïve or ignorant to Collymore’s pursuit of ridden the world of “Jitters” and that seems task is too big to let potential collateral damage be ignored. 

101Films and Reel2Reel’s AI-gone-bad and videogame rot thriller “Jitters” arrives onto Blu-ray home video with an AVC encoded 1080p Hi-Def resolution, BD25.  Presented in a widescreen.  Presented in a 2.40:1 widescreen aspect ratio, “Jitters” has compressed cinematic coveralls that’s noir polished with a darker grading of blues, greens, and browns.  The digital image delineates details more than fine within the Blu-ray codec with no compression issues to note.  Textures and fabrics are tangibly perceived; there’s great detail on Jitter’s electric headgear that has a heavier appearance than it probably is in reality, and this is a testament to the fabricated work of the production and art design crew.  Surprisingly, the 2026 release only has an encoded uncompressed PCM 2.0 Stereo track and not surround sound.  The omnipresent AI infiltrator of hardware and organic hookup gives “Jitters” ample range and breadth of depth but instead of a multi-channel 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound, the release is limited to a dual output between the audio of dialogue and everything else.  Usually, stereo formats are adequate, but “Jitters” requires the extra legroom as the boisterous soundtrack does insidiously creep onto the other audio layers, diluting the dialogue strength to an elucidating mumble and barely perceivable.  English subtitles are available for selection.  “Jitters” is a feature only release with only the trailer as a title menu option.  The 101 Films and Reel2Reel Blu-ray is housed in a clear Scanova case with a one-sided sleeve that’s detailed and contrast heavy of the titular villain.  The 94-minute film is region encoded B as it’s a UK release with UK certified 15 for strong horror, gore, violence, suicide, self-harm and language.

Last Rites: “Jitters” pulls off being an AI-inspired horror in another round-about of us set on destroying ourselves with our own creation but the added clown element can’t help but think the killer clown craze has struck again, this time negatively.

A Diary Full of EVIL Secrets. “The Darkness” reviewed! (Reel2Reel / Digital Screener)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

David inherits his ailing grandmother’s countryside cottage and holidays with his novelist girlfriend, Lisa, who seeks a little refuge to inspire her next big bestseller.  As soon as they arrive and Lisa discovers an old storage chest in the attic, Lisa’s is pulled by a call of a supernatural entity that lures her outside to an unmarked grave, an ominous cave suspected with evil fairies, and a diary that tells the horrifying accounts of a murdered woman.  Their time at the cottage take a toll on Lisa who’s strange behavior places concern on David.  An ostracized priest forewarns possession, death, and the stakes if Lisa remains in the area that’s haunted with witches, ghosts, changelings, and betrayers. 

Originally titled “Dorcha,” an Irish term for dark, and then rebranded as “The Darkness” for the remainder of the English speaking residents of the world, the 2021 released multifaced specter and fairy Irish folklore spectacle is the directorial debut of Tharun Mohan, a current producer for the 2021 United Kingdom vampire versus human boiling point coexistence television series, “Age of the Living Dead,” co-starring our good genre loving friend and actor, Bill Oberst Jr.  While Bill Oberst Jr. is not a part of “The Darkness” (my apologies if I gave a sense of false hope), Mohan, from off the pages of his screenplay, aspires to illuminate Irish mythology as an alluring gothic horror mixture of mystery with fear sans the more popular little green men defending pots of gold.  The self-produced film under the Tharun Productions is the banner’s first feature with Aoun Khan, Neenu Mathai, Anoop Pillai, and Monique R. White serving as executive producers.

While we don’t get Bill Oberst Jr. (still hurts), we do get someone just as good with “The House of Bly Manor’s” Amelia Eve!  The UK actress headlines “The Darkness” in the role of Lisa, the struggling novelist looking for a slice of inspiration but instead receives the whole pie of possession.  Eve lives it up as an entity puppeteering her youthful outer shell in the filth and muck, stuffing her face with all the food in the cottage, and, at times, imitating an urbanity style of death.  Meanwhile, her boyfriend David (Cyril Blake) would have probably unintentionally babe’d her to death if she wasn’t already being haunted by a vindictive Victorian spirit.  “The Darkness” is Blake’s introductory role into feature films and the 36 year old, South Yorkshire actor can’t quite capture sincerity when it comes to his girlfriend’s unusual behavior.  David also just wanders to-and-fro around town in an aloof manner for more than just one reason until things become dire with Lisa and  then is that only when he’s starts to get really involved and attempt to fix whatever’s afflicting  Lisa, even if he has to entertain an informed, but shunned, eccentric priest (John Sudgen) with tea and biscuits in order to get just what the hell is going on.  A number of side characters pop up with an inclining of importance, such as the nosy waitress (Marian Elizabeth), a powerful witch (Gillian Kirkpatrick), and a determined historian (Mary Drake), but fall short of any real significance by fluttering in with just enough motivational tidbits and then flutter out of the scene and let the principle characters work out the rest.  “The Darkness” is a dual timeline narrative with the current story focusing on Lisa’s bubbling black enchantment slowly taking over her body with the backbone base layer account of events providing a tell-all mystery driving Lisa mad with a menacing spirit.  Occurring around a few decades ago before Lisa and David arrive, Niav O’Connor (Katherine Harthshorne) mysteriously disappears from her husband Bryan (Adam Bond), but much of this is revealed through the Lisa’s obsessive reading of Niav’s diary which begs the question, how did Niav write her demise in the diary pages if she was already dead?

And that last sentiment ultimately describes Mohan’s film, as an unfocused and trite expression of amateur storytelling.  There’s difficulty in trying to nail down, or taking a stab at anything as the saying goes, in the “The Darkness’” many moving parts and many fiends in the off shoots Mohan tries to tie in from all various directions.  Even in the film’s final scenes, Mohan had to pen in one more twist that corrodes even further the integrity of a much desired narrative about Irish mythologies and the malevolencies that spur them. Myths are the heart of “The Darkness,” more specifically with the changelings who are fairies that replace real people, and Niav and Bryan O’Connor’s ghastly tale echoes the non-fictional account of Bridget Cleary, an Irish wife murdered by her husband under the suspicion that his wife was a changeling. Connections made between the past and present are roughly tied together at best with only Niav’s unearthed and charmed diary serving as a conduit to possess Lisa’s curious id. The pursuit of revenge for her untimely demise falls upon… well, that part of the story is undoubtedly vague as Niav seems to be resurrecting from the grave, so to speak, to reveal dubious secrets held by relatives from the lineage of her husband Bryan and cling her spiteful lifeforce to that bloodline and haunt O’Connor descendants like a severe post traumatic stress disorder; yet the vapid ending doesn’t justify the means, falling short the buildup of the hallmarks of folklore horror in witches, changelings, fairies, dark arts priests, and ghosts with anything but spectacular.

No cheap thrills, no gore, no nudity. “The Darkness” relies heavily on the suspense of the gothic tale itself to drawn in and spook audiences as the Mohan film creeps onto digital streaming services and video on demand this month, May 3rd, from the fresh-faced independent UK distribution label, Reel2Reel. The production value on “The Darkness” catches the passing aesthetically expensive eye while still being an economically financed and that’s a big credit to director of photography, Ariel Artur, getting the artistic shots that displays time and patience in getting the minor key angles right to at least extract a gripping moment of apprehension, resembling 60’s and 70’s European horror to likes of Hammer Horror or Amicus in appearance alone. As far as bonus scenes during or after the credits, there are none. As a starting line feature, “The Darkness” is not terrible. Let’s be clear on this as Tharun Mohan understand the fundamentals of filmmaking with sound positioning of characters in scenes, a superb, expensive look on a value size budget, and the Amalie Eve’s crazed performance is a thrill in itself, but envisioning the structure still remains behind the blinders, leaving “the Darkness” just an aimless shot in the dark.