Jack-O (1995)

A young boy named Sean Kelly (Ryan Latshaw) is told by a neighbor that one hundred years ago in a small town called Oakmoor Crossing, the locals put to death a mysterious man who claimed he was a warlock.
But before they could hang him, he brought forth a demonic, pumpkin-headed being to wreak havoc on the town.
Several people died valiantly before they managed to bury the creature forever or, so they thought but he swore vengeance on the townsfolk people, particularly Arthur Kelly's family and was told that Arthur's son David looks just like him. 
This spooks Sean a little and at one point falls into a sleep and goes through time in his dream of what happened there and continues to have them.
Some teens decide to hang out and drink beer at a graveyard and explores some tombstone's including Arthur's which awakens the pumpkin headed demon named the Mr. Jack.
Mr. Jack goes back to his old village on Halloween night which is in the same neighborhood as Sean's is.
On the same night Sean is being babysat by a sexy woman named Carolyn (Linnea Quigley) as the two of them are trick or treating and must find a way to survive Hallows Eve since many of the neighbors are being slaughtered by the evil Mr. Jack.
Sean becomes the final target for him due to his ancestory background as his family is cursed.

This film was a corny and cheesy, no budgeter but still alot of Halloween type fun.
It's not the least bit scary as you can easily consider it a Goosebumps type show but for grown ups only with the nudity and some of the gore. It also borrows alot from the Pumpkinhead flick except that one was by far better made.
It's worth a try to watch close to Halloween but don't expect it to be a high profile show cause it's not even close to that. The outfit of Mr. Jack looks funky though. At the time time the props and effects you could tell were extremely fake and amateurish looking too. There wasn't a huge effort at all with any of this. There was barely any money put into this flick as you can tell but it's not as bad comapred to the extremely cheap indie horror flicks you spot these days that are filmed on cheap camcorders and at least this one had a fairly descent one.
I enjoyed the film for what it was but it's only worth watching when Halloween is just around the corner. Basically this is a movie that's so bad it's good

The acting is very wooden and totally amateurish as it seems like most of the cast were performed by family or friends of the filmmaker.
Rebecca Wicks as the mother and wife in the film really triwed to bring alot of wit and character to her role as she really tried her best but she doesn't do the trick and you can tell that she seriously needed some acting lessons.
Gary Doles tried to have a bubbly attitude as the father and husband of the film and could almost get away with being considered average with what he did but again he fails.
Ryan Latshaw was supposed to play the charming child of the family and was supposed to get attention to the audience watching but he doesn't make any effort at all and just says his lines. He's the son of the director which is obvious and proves he's very inexperienced and only got the part cause he was family.
Catherine Walsh tried her best as an eccentric neighbor showing good facial expressions and had the perfect looks as someone that was rumored a witch but yet she didn't have much energy with her lines and again was wooden like I mentioned with most of the acting. However, if she continued to work in the acting industry she can really improve.
B-film horror icon Linnea Quigley however was the best out of the cast as she tried to bring alot of spunk in the film as the babysitter. She showed some descent energy but yet didn't stand out with her performance along with the rest of the cast but did show a bit of character to her part nonetheless. She was the most expreienced actress out of the whole cast.
Rachel Carter was another actress who was a bit better than the most too as the flakey sister who loved to party and seemed to do well by acting rebellious and having an attitude. Plus she looked perfect for that type of role too.

Sexpot/scream queen Linnea Quigley's first appearance in the movie is her taking a long shower rubbing soap all over her body so I think you'd get the picture.
Rachel Carter's character takes off her top and exposes her breasts to her boyfriend.

Mr Jack doesn't know how to make a convincing brutal murder but here we go.
Throats are slit.
A grumpy neighbor is stabbed in the stomach as he also spits out blood caused by Mr Jack's blade and the neighbors wife is electrocuted burning her skin into a dead corpse.
Mr Jack also beheads a biker with his blade and you can tell the head looks like a dummy.
A woman is also stabbed in the stomach.

The directing by Steve Latshaw is poor. He shows a cheesy dialogue with supporting actor Tom Ferda talking about the legend of Mr. Jack towards Ryan Latshaw in which this setting was supposed to look spooky instead it looked terribly amateurish. There's a nice shot on Ferda later on looking through his blinds in his room and spotting supporting actor Patrick Moran as Mr. Jack approaching through the mist towards the window.
There's some cheesy shots between supporting actor Mike Connor using a wooden crucifix by trying to battle Moran and planning a burial ground for him.
Latshaw doesn't pick up the pace with Ryan walking home with other two young supporting actors played by Christina Connell and George Castells walking home from school having a conversation about a neighbor being a witch and about the legend of Mr. Jack. It doesn't look at all realistic on kids being kids. But wait! There's another lacking moment when Castells brawls it out with Ryan. Sloppy wasn't the word for this.
There's another uninspired scene which involved Rebecca Wicks and Gary Doles as parents talking to Ryan on what they bought for their Halloween house trying to act charming for the Halloween spirit which falls flat.
There however is a nice shot on Ryan playing an ancestor falling to the ground and then a shot looking up on Moran looking down on him and bringing his hand towards the camera as if he's ready to attack.
There's some neat shots on a supporting cast as teenagers mainly performed by Kelly Lacy, Bernie Fidello and Michael Walsh in the forest partying out even if it looked set up and obvious plus there's shots on tombstones which looked like obvious props the way it was set out. There's is a nice cheesy shot on Moran crawling out of his grave. Plus there;s a nice shot on Lacy kneeling down towards Moran with him slashing her throat with his blade.
There's a nice shot on many dream sequences perfomed by Ryan as well as Wicks and Doles with some creepy shots on an earlier film performed by the late John Carradine. Most of this looked effective for a no budgeter like this one.
There's a nice moment with Linnea Quigley talking on the phonew about her babysitting job as well as her acting sarcastic about her sister helping out saying that she's reliable.
There's many good dialogue sequences with Quigley acting happy to see Ryan which looked natural for a friend of the family type of thing.
There's alot of fun shots on Ryan and Doles watching TV on Halloween events with a good cheesy effect shot on the TV showing special appearances by b-film actors like Cameron Mitchell, Brinke Stevens and Dawn Wildsmith strutting their stuff on the TV screen as it looked entertainingly fun in a cheesy fashion.
There's many fun directions on Wicks and Doles preparing their haunted house for trick or treaters as well as them trying to figure out some problems on stuff too.
We also spot supporting actors performed by Bill Cross and Helen Keeling as snobby neighbors watching TV. Although it looked lacking still Latshaw made it look interesting at the same time. There's also a nice shot on Cross acting nasty towards Moran with a nice glowing shot on him in the mist and then stabbing Cross with his blade which looked quite brutal. There's also a nice dark effects shot on Keeling getting electrocuted which was probably the most descent effects you'll ever spot in this film.
We spot a nice shot on Rachel Carter holding a decapitated head looking scared in the mist with Moran walking towards her and then a good shot on her screaming and running away.
There's a moment with Quigley and Ryan in a playground at night with Moran appraoching and about to attack which didn't look the least bit convicning and the shots on this looked very amateurish as it was supposed to be dark and creepy. However there is a good moment with Quigley screaming towards Ryan's character to run which looked energetic but of course that's due to her acting skills than the direction involved.
We spot a scene with Catherine Walsh trying to tell Wicks and Doles about their curse of their ancestors on Mr. Jack which was supposed to look powerfully directed and convincing but it misses by a longshot and the direction on it looked terribly wooden.
We spot a cheesy shot on Ryan banging on the door with his energy totally low on him crying to get in and the camera luring in on him which looked terribly trashy as well.
There's a moment with Ryan crawling into a burial with Moran trying to bury him which wasn't at all believeable and totally planned out as you can tell. However there is a nice approach by Walsh towards Moran and then a good shot on him stabbing her with a blade and her reactions suffocating to death was fairly passable but there's a shot on him lifting her up as you can tell the shot on the stabbed victim was a dummy.
All in all he made the actors look a little plain and wooden especially on the vicitims being attacked was not at all convincing.

The music is extremely cheesy and cheaply done on a keyboard composed by Jeffrey Walton whom has worked with Steve Latshaw in his other films too as well as with other cheesy b-film directors like Fred Olen Ray and David DeCoteau. However there's the odd windy type of sound effects mainly used during a moment in the family's funhouse with Mr. Jack wandering around which sounded nicely done.