Jack-O (1995) and Kids Horror from my Childhood

When I was growing up, I was introduced to horror at a young age. Aren’t we all? My dad was never a horror guy, but my mom was interested in horror. Add to that a childhood curiosity in things that parents don’t want kids watching and you have a formula for getting into things that might usually be a tad bit on the spooky side.

I remember sleeping over at my cousin’s house and regularly watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show when we woke up in the morning. I don’t know why. It was just a routine we had whenever I slept over as a child. Wake up before the parents of the house and watch this horror musical. Another thing I remember is sneaking over to the neighbour’s house to watch some horror stuff with the neighbour kids. We would see things like Bride of Chucky or The St. Francisville Experiment while the parents were off doing other things that didn’t involve us kids.

All of that said, I had already been introduced to horror in other ways. I wasn’t discovering horror by sneaking off to watch it when there were no parents around. There was a lot of horror aimed at children during the 90s. It was a little lighter in tone (because it was aimed at children), but it still managed to tell spooky stories that could get children interested in the genre. There were books. There were movies. And there were a whole bunch of television shows.

The biggest of those 90s horror stories geared toward children was Goosebumps. The franchise began as a series of books written by R.L. Stine. Everyone had them. By everyone, I mean everyone interested in spooky stories in any way whatsoever. I had a bunch of them. I still do. Stay Out of the Basement, Night of the Living Dummy, The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena, Night of the Living Dummy II… All the good ones. I read them a lot as a kid, slowly amassing a collection of most, if not all, of them.

The love of Goosebumps continued as the series was adapted for television. It was one of those shows where I can still remember bits and pieces of it. I clearly remember the theme song. It’s running through my head on repeat right now. I remember the green slime through the opening credits. I remember Ryan Gosling showing up in one episode. The Goosebumps books and show became staples in the lives of many people around my age who grew to appreciate horror. We grew up with the franchise.

That popularity at the time, and the popularity that continued well after we became adults in the physical sense of the word (some of us, myself included, might not actually be adults in the mental sense), led to two Goosebumps movies being made in recent years. They paid homage to many of the classic tales while telling a story that was original to the movies. They continued a childhood horror tone that hasn’t really been around for some time. They brought my childhood of growing up in a horror-filled 1990s to the present day.

Another show from around that time, and one that had its own child actors who would become big stars, was Are You Afraid of the Dark?. Jay Baruchel showed up in a few episodes. Also featured, as regulars, were his Popular Mechanics for Kids co-stars Elisha Cuthbert and Vanessa Lengies. This one actually began the year I was born. Thanks to a revival in the late 1990s and repeats airing on YTV in Canada, I got to watch the show a whole bunch. I loved it. Goosebumps was the flashy horror show, where Are You Afraid of the Dark? was the spookier one.

Are You Afraid of the Dark? also got a recent reboot. I haven’t seen either season of the new revival series, so I can’t give any thoughts about it. I know it’s out there. I want to see it at some point. I also want to rewatch the old series because of my nostalgia. It’s a staple of my childhood life, and I can still remember seeing the finale to the 1990s revival when it aired as a television movie at the turn of the century. It was an event.

There were a few other shows I want to speed through before switching over to movies. Freaky Stories was a Canadian horror show for kids. It featured animated horror tales, usually based on urban legends and things of that sort. I don’t remember too much about the animated stories, themselves. I think one might have been about Area 51. What I remember most is the live-action bookends to the stories. There were two puppets that would introduce each of the stories. One was a maggot and one was a cockroach. They were in a diner. That’s what I remember. I watched that one a lot, too.

Then there was Tales from the Cryptkeeper, an animated version of Tales from the Crypt directed at children. The stories were the Tales from the Crypt style without the blood and gore. Because it was for children, you see. The voice actor for the Cryptkeeper returned to do the voice for the animated series, which made it easier to transition to the live-action show as you grew or matured. I don’t think I watched that one as much as the others, but I remember giving it a peep now and then.

Other kids shows on at the time that had some horror elements to them were Gargoyles, Eerie Indiana, animated adaptations of Beetlejuice and Ghostbusters, and Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, none of which I watched. I did watch some of Courage the Cowardly Dog, which was a crazy horror animated show. There was A Pup Names Scooby-Doo among all the Scooby-Doo reruns on TV. I did watch all of that. There was an Addams Family show at the end of the decade, and The Zack Files at the beginning of the next. I watched both of those. It was a big decade for a young me to get into horror-based stories through television.

Now onto movies. I was watching horror movies as a kid. I already said that. I saw Bride of Chucky when I was nine. I saw Scream when I was eight. I remember seeing the Tatum in the garage stuff when I was a kid. I saw The Blair Witch Project when I was ten. It’s not like adult horror was entirely foreign to me or anything. But there were some kids horror things out there as well. Or kids adjacent, might be a better term. The movies could get a little more extreme, at times.

One movie I remember getting me right in the horror feelings as a child was The Pagemaster. It was a hybrid between live action and animated. There was a live action bookend about a kid dealing with a life full of fear before seeking refuge from a thunderstorm in a library, then an animated main story as he was sucked into the world of books. He had to travel through a few different genres. He went through adventure. He went through fantasy. The final genre he went through was horror.

I watched The Pagemaster a lot as a kid. I can remember the paint running off the cathedral-like library ceiling. It was the child’s transition into the animated world, the location where most of the story would occur. I remember feeling spooked by that bit. Imagine going to the library to get out of the rain and being forced into living out some sort of animated trek through book genres. Imagine having to overcome your fear through the horror genre. You would have to directly face your fears in a world you didn’t know. It was a spooky tale.

Other movies like Jumanji, Casper, Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, and The Nightmare Before Christmas incorporated horror elements as well. Then there were movies like Phantom Town, which I covered in 2020, which felt like Goosebumps episodes extended into feature length. There were two-part Goosebumps episodes released on home video, basically as feature length stories. And then there was Jurassic Park, a movie that kids wanted to see because there were dinosaurs. What they got was a family movie mixed with horror as the dinosaurs set out to hunt people. I still remember seeing the opening scene on VHS when I was five, being afraid of the unseen dinosaur in the box, and wanting to turn it off.

Sometimes a story that felt like it could be aimed at children had elements that were definitely not child-friendly. One such movie was 1995’s Jack-O. In 1915, a curse was placed on a family. They were hunted by a demonic pumpkin-headed demon. One of the family members stopped it. For eighty years, at least. In 1995, the demon rose and went after Sean Kelly (Ryan Latshaw), a descendent of the cursed family. It was up to Sean to defeat the demon before the demon got to his family.

Jack-O was very much a story that could have been told in an episode of Goosebumps or Tales from the Cryptkeeper. It had the classic elements of a kid-friendly story. There was the family curse. There was a demonic monster that wasn’t too spooky to look at. It was a scarecrow-looking guy with a jack-o-lantern head. There was a child in the lead role, protecting his family from the danger of the monster. With a few little tweaks, the story could have been a perfect fit for Goosebumps, with the flashy bits that would have set it apart from Are You Afraid of the Dark? episodes.

There were a couple things that weren’t quite kid-friendly, though. The first was the violence that was shown on screen. Most of the kids horror of the time didn’t feature a whole lot of blood. Jack-O featured an amount that wasn’t excessive, but was still more than kids horror would feature. The notable example was when one character was stabbed in the stomach, showing blood, and then began to cough up blood. His wife was soon electrocuted until she burned to a crisp. That was an amount of violence not typical for kids stuff.

The other thing was the humour of Jack-O. There was a satirical representation of a right-wing talk show host that showed up throughout the movie. He said things about how people should respect true Americans and true Americans only, people loyal to the flag. That sort of stuff, with slightly more nuance than I’m giving it here. There was also some sexual humour between Sean’s dad, David (Gary Doles), and his babysitter, Carolyn (Linnea Quigley). It probably wasn’t something that kids would pay too much attention to. It was in there, though, making the movie much more adult than you would think from the story.

Jack-O was a 1990s kids horror story trapped in the package of a 1990s adult-directed horror flick. It was a story that wouldn’t have felt out of place in a kid’s movie or television show that I watched when I was growing up. It was something that I could have watched when I was growing up, were it not for the violence and adult humour that was thrown on top of it. Though, I guess that wasn’t something that was out of bounds for me, so I probably could have watched it. Anyway, it was entertaining watching it now, when I’m 31 years old.

The 1990s were an interesting time to grow up. They helped to turn me into the horror fan I am today. Am I the biggest horror fan? No. Do I get thrills with the chills? Yeah I do. It was all thanks to watching things like The Pagemaster, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Freaky Stories, and Courage the Cowardly Dog. They gave me the upbringing I needed to fully appreciate things like Halloween, Hereditary, and The Sacrament. It all started as a child, with that childhood horror of the 1990s.

Now that that’s done with, I can get to the notes:

• I mentioned Phantom Town (week 404) briefly in the post.
• John Carradine had a bit part in Jack-O. He also had roles in Monster in the Closet (week 55), The Ice Pirates (week 128), and Shock Waves (week 299).
• Cameron Mitchell showed up in Jack-O, after appearing in Terror in Beverly Hills (week 78) and The Swarm (week 253).
• Brinke Stevens was in Jack-O and The Summer of Massacre (week 26).
• Finally, Linnea Quigley made a quick Sunday “Bad” Movies turnaround. She was in Graduation Day (week 462) and Jack-O.
• Have you seen Jack-O? What did you think of it? Was there any kids horror that you grew up with? You can talk about it with me on Twitter or in the comments.
• Let me know if there are any movies that I should check out for future Sunday “Bad” Movies weeks. Get a hold of me on Twitter or drop the suggestion in the comments.
• Check out Sunday “Bad” Movies on Instagram for more Sunday “Bad” Movies fun.
• October is now over, which means we’re out of the horror month. I’ll be tackling a movie from another genre come next week. What movie is it? You’re probably asking that right now. Let me tell you. I’ll be checking out Material Girls, from 2006. If you want to see what I think of that, come back on Sunday for another post.

Feardotcom (2002) and Story Endings

One of the most important parts of telling a story is sticking the landing. The end of a story is what the audience will leave on. It is their final impression of whatever story is being told. A bad ending can leave a sour taste in their mouths. As much as people want to believe that a story is about the journey and not the destination, the destination is still a major part of why they might enjoy something. When the ending is good, the audience is satisfied. They are happy. Or sad. Or whatever emotion the ending conveys. Whatever they case, they’re fulfilled.

The success or failure of a story’s ending can change the lasting impression that the story has on a person. It is the final thing that people experience while being presented with a story. It’s that last little note that should put a nice bow on things but doesn’t always do so. Different storytellers have different ways that they like to end different stories. I want to go over five specific kinds of endings, relating them to different movies featured in Sunday “Bad” Movies. It should give some insight into the different endings.

The Abrupt Ending

The Devil Inside was covered in one of the earliest posts of Sunday “Bad” Movies. I only ever saw it that one time and never felt the need to revisit it. That apprehension to revisit very much has to do with the ending. Or, should I say, what I remember of the ending. There are a few story details that I can’t quite remember, but I’ll try to recollect as much as I can before I get to what I consider to be one of the most abrupt conclusions to any movie.

There were a few people investigating a possession, I think. There was a girl whose grandmother or aunt or someone was apparently possessed in some way. She traveled overseas to check in on the possessed relative, being joined by a couple of priests or priests-in-training. Something like that. Along the way, the possession jumped between people, I think, before one of the main characters was possessed. Before anything could come of that, however, the screen cut to black with text telling the audience to visit a website if they wanted to see more of the story.

That text is what I remember most vividly. Even if I got details of the story wrong, which I likely did, I remember that text. The Devil Inside was approaching what would typically be the climax of any other movie, and it just stopped. As far as the movie went, that was the end. There was technically more at some website, but for the sake of the runtime of the movie, its ending was a lack of an ending. It just abruptly stopped and went to credits.

This abrupt ending was the bringer of ill will. Nobody liked that ending. People were furious that they would have to do more work to get the whole story because the movie abruptly ended. I, for one, enjoyed the movie up to that point. I liked the story that was being told. Then that happened and I was a little upset. Things were picking up for a climactic battle to save one of the main characters from possession, and I wasn’t going to get that battle. I was left wondering what would happen, without ever wanting to go to the website to find out for myself.

Most abrupt endings aren’t this glaringly bad, and actually fall into the next category. Speaking of which, let’s get to the next kind of ending.

The Action is Over, and So is the Movie

The Devil Inside is kind of an outlier for the abrupt endings. The ending happened in the middle of the action. That’s not usually the case. The action is meant to be the plot, which the audience follows along with. Thus, a proper ending would have the action end. The abruptness comes with the story ending as soon as the action concludes. The character’s arcs end with the action, thus their story is over when the action ends. There is no need to keep following them beyond that action.

A few weeks ago, I covered 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown. The story of the movie was that the main character was fighting for his life in a locked down police precinct because he had evidence that would put away a bunch of dirty cops. They wanted to stop him from sharing the evidence and spent the movie trying to kill him. It was essentially the “one man taking on many” story of Die Hard, updated to modern day in a police precinct.

The ending was abrupt in that, as soon as the bad guys were disposed of, the main police officer walked off into the credits. The main character picked off most of the villains. He came face to face with the leader of the dirty cops. He exposed that leader to some higher ups in the police force, clearing his name and ridding the police force of the crooked cop ring. He walked out the door, the music started, and the credits rolled.

12 Rounds 3: Lockdown wasn’t the only time Sunday “Bad” Movies featured a movie with this kind of ending. Stone Cold was another action movie where a police officer took on a bunch of bad guys before walking off into the proverbial sunset. He went undercover in a biker gang who planned to attack some government officials. They executed their plan, he took them out, and as the FBI or whoever cleaned up the mess everyone left behind, he walked out the front door of the building. Cue the music and credits.

Setting Up the Sequel

Now it’s time to get into the endings that aren’t quite as abrupt. I’m going to start with the idea of a movie setting up a sequel because it can sometimes bridge the gap between abrupt and not abrupt. Why? Because it will let the movie end, but it will also toss in a nugget to get people hyped up about a movie that could follow. It’s still a little abrupt in how it can kick off the idea of a sequel without following through. Since the story of that one movie is over, though, the ending could be considered complete.

A fairly recent movie that was covered for Sunday “Bad” Movies was Iron Sky: The Coming Race. It was the second movie in the Iron Sky franchise, which meant that it was a sequel. The final moments of the movie helped to set up a second sequel. That sequel to the sequel has yet to be made, however. That doesn’t mean it won’t be. It has only been two years since the release of Iron Sky: The Coming Race, and those two years have been the Covid-19 era of the world. It makes sense that there might not have been a third Iron Sky movie made during that time.

The ending of Iron Sky: The Coming Race, the characters who had already left Earth to live on the moon left the moon and headed to Mars. The credits rolled as the spaceship travelled on and on, through the vastness of space. As it approached Mars, there was something that appeared on the planet. Mars had been colonized by Russians, setting up a sequel where the surviving Earth/Moon population would have to confront Russian communism on the planet they hoped to inhabit.

This isn’t nearly the only case of a movie that set up a sequel in its final moments. Going away from Sunday “Bad” Movies for a second, I feel the need to bring up the Back to the Future trilogy. Each of the first two movies had famous scenes in which a sequel was set up. Back to the Future ended on Doc Brown showing up in the DeLorean, now a flying time machine, to take Marty to the future to help his kids. Back to the Future Part II ended on Marty, still in 1955, getting a letter from an 1885 Doc Brown, before heading into a trailer for the third installment.

Setting up a sequel is a common occurrence in blockbuster movies. Something that feels very similar, at face value, is the next type of ending.

Final Scare

Everyone knows what this type of ending is. It’s most present in horror flicks. The killer or monster gets defeated. Everything seems calm. It is. For a matter of time. The calm is broken by the killer or monster coming back and the movie cuts to credits before that can be resolved. Dun dun duuuuunnnnnn! It’s the setting up of a potential sequel through the abrupt, shocking final moment. It is the final scare.

Now, I could go into detail about numerous horror movies and how they have the final scare. When people think of final scare, they think horror. I’ve watched enough horror for Sunday “Bad” Movies that there are a bunch of examples of the final scare. The Deadly Spawn had the hill lifting up to reveal a monster. Friday the 13^th: A New Beginning had Tommy with the knife. Phantom Town ended with the parents possibly being a part of the town. Horror movies like to get that final scare at the end because they’re scary movies.

I want to show how the final scare can be utilized in a different genre, though, because there’s another movie featured in Sunday “Bad” Movies that had a final scare. Jingle All the Way was a family movie about one man’s quest to retrieve a Turbo Man action figure for his son for Christmas. The only issue was that he put it off for so long, he was competing with all the other neglectful parents on Christmas Eve. The whole movie was wacky antics that led to the main character bumbling into a Turbo Man costume for a parade, where his son would say that he didn’t need the action figure because his dad was Turbo Man. Anyway, everything wrapped up nicely until the main character was going to sleep and his wife said that he put in so much effort for their son that he must have gotten her something great, too. His eyes shot open in terror, realizing he forgot to get his wife a gift.

The end of Jingle All the Way wasn’t a final scare in the traditional sense. It wasn’t the boogeyman creeping in for a final fright as the credits rolled. The main character brought this scare on himself. He had gone through the wringer trying to get a toy for his son. It had nearly ended his marriage when he was caught trying to steal the toy from his neighbour. And now his wife was going to find out that he forgot to get her something. It was more of a personal mental anguish for the main character than a last scare for the audience. It worked in the same way, story-wise, though.

I could write about Jingle All the Way all day long, but there’s still one last ending I want to highlight.

Denouement

It’s time to give an actual ending to a movie, without the bells and whistles. There’s no setting things up, here. There’s no final scare. This is just an ending that, when the action ends, lets things settle a little bit. It allows the characters to come to terms with what happened. It lets them breathe for a few seconds before the credits roll. This is the denouement, which fades the story out instead of giving it a hard cut.

In action movies, the denouement is frequently the moment when the action hero embraces the romantic interest after they nearly die trying to save people. Die Hard has John McLane embracing his estranged wife outside the building while Twinkie cop watches on. Paul Blart: Mall Cop has Paul Blart embracing the wig stand girl. Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 has Paul Blart seeing his daughter off to college and flirting with a horse-riding police officer. The denouement is typically the character moment that follows the conclusion of the major action, a way to give the characters some relief.

Feardotcom wasn’t as successful with the denouement as some other movies. Mike (Stephen Dorff) was a detective tasked with solving a mysterious series of deaths and potentially bringing a serial killer to justice. He teamed up with Terry (Natascha McElhone), a forensic analyst. They discovered that the victims all had one thing in common. They used a website where a guy tortured and killed women on a live feed. As Mike and Terry dove deeper into the mystery, they discovered that there was more to the website than they initially thought.

The denouement came after the villain was defeated, the mystery was solved, and the supernatural elements that came into the story later on were seemingly put to rest. Terry came out alive and was resting on her bed. The phone rang. She picked it up. There was some static. She put it back down and went back to sleep, or near sleep. What could have been a memorable denouement to a crazy serial killer and supernatural story ended up being a whimper of an ending. It was nothing and did nothing to close out the character.

Hopefully a denouement ending will do more for a movie than what was present in Feardotcom. The denouement should touch on something with the character, closing out an emotional arc after the action of the film concludes. Say the movie involved a romance during the action, the action will conclude, then the romance will get its conclusion in the denouement. If there’s a parental issue going on while the action is happening, it will get tidied up once the action finishes. The action gets an ending, then the denouement gives an ending to what made audiences connect with the characters.

There are many different endings that could be used in storytelling. I’ve covered five of them. That isn’t nearly all the endings. Some of them could be a little different than what I’ve discussed. Some are specific subsets of the endings I already listed. There are endings where the hero rides off into the sunset. There are endings where the hero dies. There are endings where the protagonist talks directly to the camera, breaking the fourth wall. Each of these endings could have been their own category, but they also kind of fall under others. Aside from the fourth wall one. That one could probably get its own section, if I hadn’t just thought of it now. Damn you, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and The Laundromat.

It is important for a storyteller to stick the landing if they want people to stay interested in their work. The final moments of a story are the lasting impression that will stick with the audience beyond finishing it. A bad ending, or the wrong ending, can make an audience not want to revisit a story, or not want to check out anything else from that storyteller. A good story can do the opposite. A good ending can hook people in for another story, whether a continuation or not. That’s how powerful the final moments of a story can be.

Now that the post is over, let’s get some notes in here:

• Movies mentioned in this post were The Devil Inside (week 13), 12 Rounds 3: Lockdown (week 460), Stone Cold (week 423), Iron Sky (week 440), Iron Sky: The Coming Race (week 440), The Deadly Spawn (week 19), Friday the 13^th: A New Beginning (week 46), Phantom Town (week 404), and Jingle All the Way (week 160).
• Feardotcom was Udo Kier’s introduction into the five-timers’ club for Sunday “Bad” Movies. His other four appearances were in Far Cry (week 364), Surviving Christmas (week 367), Iron Sky (week 440), and Iron Sky: The Coming Race (week 440).
• Jeffrey Combs returned to Sunday “Bad” Movies for his third time in Feardotcom. His other appearances were in Robot Jox (week 6) and Elf-Man (week 213).
• Stephen Dorff also made a third appearance in Feardotcom. He was previously seen in Alone in the Dark (week 152) and Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star (week 221).
• The final three-timer was Joe Forbes, who appeared in Lavalantula (week 290), 2 Lava 2 Lantula (week 290), and Feardotcom.
• Sigal Diamont was in Double Team (week 193) and Feardotcom.
• Feardotcom saw the return of Anna Thalbach to Sunday “Bad” Movies. She was in Killer Condom (week 205).
• Finally, Feardotcom and Nine Lives (week 228) featured Kwasi Songui.
• Have you seen Feardotcom? What did you think of it? Were there any other kinds of story endings that I missed out on? You can use the comments or find me on Twitter to discuss anything from this post.
• Let me know what movies I should check out for Sunday “Bad” Movies by getting a hold of me on Twitter or in the comments.
• Head over to Instagram to see more Sunday “Bad” Movies stuff on a semi-regular basis.
• We’re getting near the end of October. In fact, next Sunday is Halloween. I’ll be checking out a fitting movie for spooky day. No, it’s not a movie from the Halloween franchise. It’s an early 1990s movie called Jack-O. You’ll find out more about it when you come back for next week’s post. I’ll see you then.