Jack in the Box 2 - Awakening

Its nothing more than utter crap. Its bad acting, bad plot and just utter boredom to watch. They try some jumpscare, but at most you get annoyed. After 20 min. Of watching this crap, i began playing Fishdom on my phone. Avoid.

Poor poor poor and poor in every way. The script is boring, obviously written by an amateur. The acting is very bad, overacting in a very bad way. The actors are the worst, can't be any worse.

The first film was a well-shot, but fairly run-of-the-mill direct-to-video horror. The production value was good for the budgetary constraints, but overall, the story was generic and felt a little padded.

'The Jack in the Box: Awakening' is certainly an improvement. We begin with what seems like a basic horror film setup, but the film surprised me by showing a surprisingly large amount of the story through (one of) the villain's perspective. It's very clever from an emotional standpoint and the acting was actually really good from everyone, but Matt McClure as Edgar is definitely the standout.

So the story, is actually quite well-done, and while there is a somewhat overlong exposition scene, it's more about the emotional journey than it is all the backstory of the demon. There are some very effective sequences of tension building too, often involving lights, which sounds very rudimentary on paper, but, trust me, it's used to good effect here.

I only wish they hadn't shied away on many of the kills though: a disappointing amount of them happen off-screen, which is okay for a few times and I know suspense is more effective than gore, but it is a slasher and I would have like to have seen a little more pay-off with the deaths.

I would recommend this for low-budget horror fans. Aside from being just a little overlong, it's a fairly uniquely-told story with good production value (the locations are gorgeous), well-done cinematography and some decent suspense and scares. Lawrence Fowler has clearly grown as a writer and director and you won't be lost if you skip the original film. I wish the creators the best luck in their future endeavours.

Jack in the Box: Awakening (2022) is a movie I recently watching on Tubi. The storyline follows a woman on her deathbed who makes a wish to the wrong old antique box. The box agrees to grant her wish if she releases whats inside...

This movie is directed by Lawrence Fowler (Jack in the Box) and stars Matt McClure (Penny Dreadful), James Swanton (Host), Mollie Hindle (The Highwayman), Nicola Wright (Love Possibly) and Michaela Longden (Book of Monsters).

This was better than the first film. Once again the costume, makeup and sound effects were excellent and created a great "monster;" unfortunately, the kill scenes were still a notch down from what I hoped. The kill scenes show a knife or scissors, a gesture and then not what happens to the victims. The storyline isn't compelling enough to care about the characters and what happens to them and the ending is straightforward.

Overall this is a step in the right direction from the first film but still is a below average addition to the horror genre. I would score this a 4/10 and recommend skipping it.

The original 'The Jack in the Box' movie was a pretty different origin story horror movie, which was a good watch. My partner and I enjoyed watching it. This sequel expanded on the backstory of the Jack in the box, which was again interesting, but mot different enough to make the movie much better. It still had the same kind of story, a different setting, of course, but the same kind of kills. I only wanted to watch it to see if things were going to be different, but they kind of wasn't. It was worth a one-time watch, only for the expanded backstory, but that's about it. My partner and I will watch the third movie, but only to complete the series and move on to the next horror movie we well watch. 4/10.