The story for The Jester got its start through a trio of short films that were put on YouTube. The shorts had found success, and fans were rewarded with a feature length film. Shudder grabbed the streaming rights for the film, and now here we are …When it comes to Shudder, I have no shame in admitting it is my favorite of all the streaming services. Not only does it have a solid selection of horror films, but it also has The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs, and that alone makes it worth the monthly fee. Now, as a horror service, it is no surprise that they buy a bunch of titles to release over the course of the year, and in the past they’ve put out greats like The Innocents, The Sadness, and Deadstream to name a few. But of course they are going to have some misses, and The Jester is one of those confident purchases that I feel ended up a big miss.
To put it in simple terms, The Jester is a bad knockoff of the Terrifier films. Sure, the horror genre is filled with knockoff films, and some are better than the previous film they ripped the plot from, but in the case of Terrifier, I feel that film is sort of like magic in a gore-filled bottle that just came along at the perfect time, and The Jester, despite having its heart in the right place, just doesn’t have what it takes to compete. Now, before I really get started, where The Jester does succeed, it captures the Halloween atmosphere beautifully from the set design to the color palette throughout, so even though it is summer, if you are craving a film that has all the autumn vibes you can ask for, for this alone, The Jester may be worth taking a gander at.
The film is about two half-sisters who are coping with the loss of their father. Emma (Lelia Symington) was the last to speak with her estranged father before his death (murder). Her father was trying to make amends, but she rejected him, and now with his passing she is carrying around the guilt of not having given him a chance. Then there is Jocelyn (Delaney White). She basically had the “perfect” upbringing with her father and seems to want nothing more than to have a relationship with Emma, since she is the only family she has left. You’d think that there is enough emotional drama to keep this story interesting, but it just doesn’t work in this case. The drama with the sisters just felt flat. The performances were OK, but the script in this area was a bit clunky.
In the opening sequence of the film we see the Jester character is responsible for the dad’s death, so there is no mystery there. But when the Jester shows up at the cemetery after the funeral and begins to torment the sisters, we definitely get an Art “the clown” and Michael Myers vibe from the character, especially how he likes to kill those who cross his path. While some of the kills we see are clever, when the film reaches the climax and we finally get to understand the motivations for the Jester, well, instead of filling plot holes, it makes more of them, because it doesn’t make a lick of sense.
What I do like about the film is the look of the Jester, I dig the orange suit and the mask; it certainly does make for an iconic look. As I mentioned before, I do appreciate some of the kills, though I do wish we could have gotten a bit more gore with them. In a slasher film like this, blood spatter and some messy guts are more than welcome to the viewer. But the best part is how the film lets the viewer see that it is Halloween. I especially loved the Halloween carnival that comes later in the film. I wish this film had a do-over, and instead of focusing so much on being about the half-sisters if it was just a more straightforward slasher, this would have been way more fun, but instead it was kind of boring. While the potential is there, this one is a miss for me. If another Jester film is in the pipeline, I’d consider seeing it with caution … though on the bright side, later this year Terrifier 3 comes out, and I feel that one will deliver more on the bloody goods.
