Hazard Jack

A group of annoying young people host a party inside of an abandoned hospital. Before long, their night of fun turns into a night of carnage as a massive, steroid-pumped and shellshocked Iraq war veteran mauls them all to death with various pieces of construction equipment. There are a few beheadings, a jock gets nailed alive to a wall, the token black dude is eviscerated with a drill bit, and a ridiculous latino gay caricature is burned alive in a church (how's that for offensive?)

Hazard Jack is a mostly formulaic slasher -- seen one, seen 'em all -- but it earns some points for seeming at least a little self-aware of its function as pornography. Its characters are so over-the-top stereotypical and the titular maniac so obscenely huge and bestial as to indicate as much.

But in the end, for a film like this, there really wasn't enough gore. Everything in the introduction -- from the deteriorating hospital setting to the brute killer's hefty arsenal of killing tools -- make you expect volumes of blood and guts, and yet the gore level is at best average. The slasher is one of the most overdone genres of film ever, and you can't sell one these days without extreme gore and suspense. Otherwise, it really feels like plagiarism.

As a devoted slasher fan, I hope Jack returns for a sequel. But when he does, I hope he's willing to paint the town red.

This movie is very typical of what's done in the slasher genre. It has a psycho bad guy who kills for no real reason. Yeah, they said he has PTSD, but come on. He lives in an abandoned hospital and kills anyone who happens to trespass in it. It also has the audience rooting for the killing of the very unlikeable characters. Of course, it's not a slasher without the slasher movie props of blood, gore and boobs. Three of the girls show their breasts. The ones who don't are Bridget (Amanda Manddox) and Stella (Alison Lani). That figures, since they're the only two people in the entire movie I liked.

Of course, cliché after cliché is used. Clichés don't mean something will be bad, just like lack or originality doesn't mean it, either. However, if they use clichés and repetitive story lines, at least try to do a good job on them. In this movie, they didn't. They have some of the characters running for their lives down the hallway. The killer is just walking after them. Somehow, the killer always catches up to his prey. Come on! Put that pathetic cliché six feet under already! This is the 21st Century. Is the audience really supposed to believe that somebody walking can catch up to people who are running? Ugh! No cell phone reception? Really? I know in hospitals - the ones that are working - cell reception is hard, but that's because of the machines that are in use. This is an old, abandoned hospital, and they can't get a signal? The writing was in serious need of help. The characters, most of them, were in serious need of being killed. I do not recommend.

The one victim that keeps suffering every time a movie like this is made is the slasher genre itself. When someone hears another slasher is out, people roll their eyes, and it's because of movies like this, The Cemetery, Varsity Blood, and I can go on and on with other failed slasher titles. Stop killing the slasher genre, folks! I gave this 2 stars. One for Amanda Maddox, and one for Alison Lani.

I can appreciate the good intentions and the attempt to raise awareness of a disorder, but still the making of the film remains shoddy, silly dialogue and jumping through hoops that honestly made me laugh, the plot is one of a group of fools going to an abandoned hospital to party where there is a whiny killer.

There are a few characters I found annoying (with the exception of the gay couple, honestly I wanted them to die, and the killer does us the courtesy of having eliminated them) to say there is an aspiring filmmaker who I thought was supposed to document the hospital but instead he gets to shoot gonzo porn, then there are two primate couples who do nothing but undress and have sex at inappropriate times as if they were bonobos, however the only characters I liked were the ones who survived and also the gay couple.

I also found funny the realization of the scene where the killer throws an axe, which was ridiculous to say the least.

Hazard Jack is the tale of a hulking combat vet suffering from PTSD who takes up residence in an abandoned hospital and kills unsuspecting visitors with an assortment of power tools and other sharp implements. A group of young people visit the hospital for a weekend of paintball wargames (and partying), and they naturally cross paths with Jack. There's nothing new or surprising to be found here, but Hazard Jack ticked the right boxes: creepy location, backstory, masked killer, murders (including one very fun and gory set piece). Some of the main characters were even likeable, although the script still fell into the "no way would all these people be friends" trap. The only thing that didn't fit was a ham handed closing credits sequence showing homeless vets and other skid row residents while a maudlin tune played but I can overlook that. I've seen hundreds of slasher flicks over the years, and Hazard Jack sits comfortably in the upper middle of the pile.

Deciding to engage in a game of paint-ball, a group of friends wrongly choose the location held by a PTSD-plagued war vet who sees them as a chance to continue his reign of terror and forcing them to stop him in order to get out alive.

Overall, this was quite a surprising and enjoyable slasher effort that really gets a lot right. One of it's better elements throughout this is the prime location set-up here to take advantage of the intended target here of the paint-ball game in the abandoned hospital where he's secretly living. The winding corridors, endless darkened rooms split off from the main entrances, plenty of power-tools left lying around to make for handy weaponry and the type of dirty, grimy atmosphere gained from years of neglect and disuse that supplies this perfectly well with a great location and really makes the most of it. That also occurs with the rather frantic and enjoyable stalking scenes that are quite enjoyable if just a tad clichéd of the use of running victims being unable to escape from the shambling killer but there's more in quantity that certainly make for an overall more enjoyable offering. Along with the locations and stalking here, the plentiful gore and bountiful nudity also supply this with a lot to like and really seem to help overlook the fact that the running time is so short yet never once overstays it's welcome or descends into boredom by constantly providing all of those features together at given intervals to continually creep further along and generally come across as quite positive. That said, there's still a few minor areas here that do hold this one down, mostly the two aforementioned tactics in its short running time and the clichéd stalking scenes but also from the fact that it manages to once again feature such a wide-ranging group of people that they're hardly the sort of friends that would hang out with each other in real-life and it becomes upsetting to think they would be. It really casts a strong cloud over the film, as well as the fact of this one really doesn't do much interesting with its' killer beyond the silent, hulking brute. The ties to the disorder is fine and actually well-handled, but it tends to go off on several needless tangents throughout here which are just plain confusing and don't really offer much to the film beyond their confusing nature. These do hold it back somewhat, though what's on display is often enough to hold it off and become quite enjoyable.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, Nudity, several sexual situations and drug use.