Jump Scare
Writer/Director: Donnie Hobbie
Cast: Shannon Dang, Eric Ruth Walker, Madison Abbott, Chelsea Talmadge, Natasha Estrada, Casey Morris, Eric Roberts
Film festivals present one of the best opportunities to do one of my favorite things: See a movie completely blind. I might know something about the director, or the cast, or the production company, but so often with festivals, particularly genre festivals spotlighting indie work, you just sit down and watch, and let whatever's about to happen wash over you, completely free of expectations.
That's how I found Jump Scare, writer/director Donnie Hobbie's wild, hilarious, expressive take on the timeless horror story of some kids running afoul of backwoods monsters. It's like no other horror movie I've seen this year, and if you like your horror films with a side of self-aware fun, it's a must-watch.
Jump Scare is the name of a metal band made up of friends Kye (Shannon Dang), Jen (Erin Ruth Walker), Debbie (Madison Abbott), and Val (Chelsea Talmadge). Together with their roadie/friend Dale (Casey Morris), they've set on a journey to create new music in a house in the desert that also once housed their favorite band, Blitzgasm, against which they measure all of their musical progress. The house, really not much more than a crumbling shack, is full of energy for Jump Scare, and they hope it'll produce some great art.
Right away, though, things go wrong, beginning with a strange encounter with beehive-haired neighbor Karen (Natasha Estrada), who offers the girls a cake which may or may not be poisonous. Soon, making music is forgotten, as Jump Scare's creative getaway becomes a deeply strange, nightmarish journey through a world gone mad.
There are few things I love more than a film which takes familiar ingredients and plays with them in new ways while also delivering The Goods on a genre level. If you came to watch a group of bandmates battle desert cannibals a la The Hills Have Eyes, you're gonna get it with this movie, but that's not why Jump Scare is successful. For all its promises of blood and guts (which it delivers), the film is much more wrapped up in the sheer strangeness of its premise, and the way its characters react when pushed to the limits of sanity.
These limits manifest, delightfully, not through bleak rivers of gore and despair, but through unexpected, singularly paced humor. Hobbie scribbles words across the screen at various intervals, emphasizing the madness of a given situation. The band name "Fleetwood Mac" is bleeped, as though it's forbidden among metal fans. The cinematography, by Seth Macmillan, revels in the obvious artificiality of the visual effects, placing them in context not as low-budget work trying to pass as something bigger, but as deliberate reminders that we're watching something stylized, something engineered to look otherworldly even as it has its roots in our own reality. It's quirky, and it's funny, and it's got the handmade feel of Wes Anderson married to the sensory overload of something like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, which in its way only adds to the horror. This cannot be happening, should not be happening, and so the film places it in the context of a phantasmagoric nightmare.
This presents some interesting acting challenges for the cast, all of whom rise to meet the tone of the narrative and the visuals to create something special. In a way, while it's also a horror film about young women fighting off evil hillbillies, Jump Scare is a wild metaphoric look at what it's like to just try to create something and feel not just stuck, but overwhelmed by the possibilities. These women just want to make music together, to do something special, to take a moment to step back from the wider world and refocus, and instead every circumstance conspires to push back against that aim. They hear metal is dead, they can't keep track of their roadie, they're in the middle of nowhere, and now maniacs want to kill them too? They cannot catch a break, and the film's character work means that each of the four leads must move from ironic detachment to genuine investment over the course of the movie. Dang, Walker, Abbott, and Talmadge all pull it off, and with a scene-stealing turn from Estrada, Jump Scare becomes a remarkable ensemble horror-comedy.
Even as I'm laying out all of these elements for you, though, I have to close by saying that there's something about Jump Scare that you simply have to see to believe. It feels unbridled and free in a way that a lot of genre films beholden to various formulas simply don't, and that's both refreshing and deeply satisfying. See this one as soon as you get the chance.
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