NightStream Retro Review: ‘Jack Be Nimble’ Separated Siblings Might Have Been Better Off Apart in this Genre Blending Horror

Jack Be Nimble is now streaming as part of Nightstream Film Festival. Reader Beware Spoilers!!!

New Zealand is widely known for being Middle Earth in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit franchises. But before Peter Jackson made it a vacation destination, it had a vibrant film scene in the early nineties. Making its 2K Restoration World Premiere at the 2021 Nightstream Film Festival is the overlooked gothic horror Jack Be Nimble (1993). The first feature-length film from writer/ director Garth Maxwell, who in 1989 won a Cannes Award for his short Beyond Gravity.

Jack Be Nimble starts with a mother suffering a complete mental breakdown due to the extracurricular activities of her husband, possibly actual or imagined, we’re not quite sure. She secures her two young children Dora and Jack, in the bedroom and vanishes. Their father returns and realizes he has been abandoned and tasked with caring for the kids. He quickly puts them both in an orphanage, which looks like it wouldn’t be fit to house animals.

Dora is adopted by the upper-middle-class Birch family and separated from her brother. Jack, meanwhile, is taken by Clarrie and Bernice, who live on a dilapidated farm with their four creepy daughters. Dora wants for not and is doted on as the only child. On the other hand, Jack is verbally and physically abused, fed scraps, and constantly told what a disappointment he is to everyone. 

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Now grown, Jack (Alexis Arquette) struggles with his studies but is masterful with his shop class skills. When he’s betrayed by his “sisters” and brutally beaten by his drunken “father,” Jack decides to share with the family what it is he’s been building. When the device is powered up, the miniature blinking lights hypnotize everyone, and Jack exacts his revenge by suggesting his adopted parents harm themselves. Free from their torment, Jack sets off to find his sister.

Meanwhile, Dora (Sarah Smuts-Kennedy) is hearing voices in her head after an altercation that puts her in the hospital. Believing they’re voices from the dead, she begins drinking heavily to drown them out and get some needed sleep. It isn’t until she meets a much older Teddy (Bruno Lawrence) that she gets some relief as he has psychic abilities, too, and can help her quiet the chatter that’s plaguing her. The two begin to form a strong bond that becomes a blossoming relationship until Jack and Dora are reunited.

Fueled by rage for the life he has been dealt and taking it out on anyone he encounters, it’s clear Jack is a powder keg ready to explode. Possessive of his long-lost sister, he mistrusts the people in her life and tries to put a wedge into her relationships. Dora is torn between the life she has now and a life with her brother at her side. 

Desperate to find answers to why they were abandoned, the two siblings set off to find their birth parents. All the while unaware, they are being hunted by the four sisters Jack left alive, now under the control of their vindictive dead mother and hell-bent on revenge. 

Jack be Nimble doesn’t exactly know what type of movie it wants to be. It jumps back and forth from a revenge tale, romance, psychopathic killer, thriller, psychic ability mystery, and a re-connection drama. Despite this mixed bag of genres, it kind of works. I did find myself checking the clock now and then, but the narrative drew me in for the most part, and I was curious about how they would eventually wrap up this unique tale. 

I don’t believe I had watched anything of Alexis Arquette’s before now, and I was impressed with the performance in Jack Be Nimble that she was able to conjure. It’s a fine line playing the slow, abused character where you feel sorry for them becoming an antagonist with such fury and brutality that you’re terrified for anyone who gets in their path. 

Sarah Smuts-Kennedy’s portrayal of Dora feels like she’s in a constant dream state for most of the film. She tends to bounce from catatonic to hysterical, which sometimes feels a bit silly but keeps in line with the character’s emotional state of sleep deprivation. With her eventual “awakening,” she realizes her potential that you almost wish could have happened sooner to see what else she could do. 

Donald Duncan’s cinematography is stunning, Jack Be Nimble sets horrific acts against a picturesque New Zealand seascape. The juxtaposition of the opposing visuals makes disturbing acts easier to digest oddly. There are some unique kills with this one, and the cruelest nature in which they are performed is both cathartic (due to the victim’s behavior) and cringeworthy. There is some genuinely haunting imagery on display from the marigold baptism, decapitated statue, mother in the tree, to the creepy twins. Who feel like they crawled out of the Manson family.

A slow burn until the final act, Jack Be Nimble feels like a lost 70’s feature. Believable characters and performances make you forgive the whole bonkers premise of these many genres blending into one storyline. With the new restoration, I’m hopeful a whole new generation of horror fans will discover this one and appreciate it for its boldness and creativity. 3/5

★★★

Jack Be Nimble is now streaming as part of NightStream Film Festival. Be sure to follow ScaryNerd for all things horror, sci-fi and more.

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