Grief, Satanism and black magic is rife in Anything For Jackson, the Canadian horror film about a pair of grandparents who will quite literally do anything to bring back their deceased grandson.
The premise is surprisingly fresh: grieving elderly couple Audrey (Sheila McCarthy) and Dr. Henry Walsh (Julian Richards) abduct pregnant Shannon Becker (Konstantina Mantelos) with plans to invoke the spirit of their recently deceased grandson into her unborn child. They have soundproofed the basement bedroom, set up a nanny cam to watch over her and have a rock-solid plan to ensure the police don’t come calling.
Like all best laid plans, however, hiccups arise: Henry is caught in a lie when questioned by Detective Bellows (Lanette Ware) and, more significantly, the small time Satanists are in way over their heads when it comes time to perform the invocation. Suddenly the door to purgatory is wide open and there’s no shortage of threatening ghosts invading their palatial home, seeking a way back to the world of the living.
Director Justin G. Dyck creates a suitably creepy atmosphere, particularly in the design of the apparitions. Anything for Jackson dials back the FX, wisely employing a chilly blue/grey colour scheme, solid sound cues and a menagerie of different types of threatening spectres to create tension instead. In one scene Audrey is personally haunted by a young trick ‘r treater in a ghost costume who appears in every door she passes; the result is unnerving, especially when the film borrows a memorable trick from It Follows as the ghost exits an elevator.
The single most memorable character in the film has to be Troy James’ Suffocating Ghost. First glimpsed by Shannon as it crawls out from under her bed, the ghost’s head is wrapped in a plastic bag (hence the name) and he moves in a crab-like fashion. The character is a perfect example of how to seamlessly marry performance with special effects: the head and limbs rotate unnaturally as the Suffocating Ghost wheezes and leaps about the room. It’s a marvelously creepy creature that is used to great effect.
When the film focuses on Audrey and Henry and the unconventional relationship they strike up with their hostage, it’s a compelling drama with scattered scares and unexpected moments of humor. Somewhere in the second act, though, the film loses its way a little. As Audrey and Henry struggle to cope with the out of control spectres in their home, they turn to fellow Satanist Ian (Josh Cruddas) for help. Ian is introduced briefly near the start of the film when Audrey and Henry keep up appearances by attending a “Church” (ie: Satanist) meeting at the local community centre and it’s immediately evident that Ian is a little shifty.
The issue is that the character is ill-defined and poorly integrated into the narrative considering how large a role he plays in the back half of the film. This is where Keith Cooper’s screenplay loses its focus and the film gets off track; Anything for Jackson shifts from Audrey and Henry to a character whose motivations we barely know or care about. And while the action does ramp up as the bodies pile up, the intimacy of the character-based first act is lost in the melee, particularly as our elderly protagonists are shifted from the center of the story to the periphery.
This is a shame considering how capably McCarthy and Richards anchor the whole project. Audrey and Henry aren’t garden-variety villains: they’re committing a horrible act out of genuine love and grief. They’re also highly competent kidnappers who have plotted out all of the little details (in one amusing line, Audrey explains to Shannon that as retirees they have nothing but time). This is the kind of meaty role that character actors like McCarthy and Richards aren’t typically afforded. Audiences hungry for a conventional climax will find their bloodthirsty appetites satiated by the last act, but in doing so, the film loses sight of what made it so compelling in the first place: Audrey and Henry.
Considering Dyck and Cooper’s extensive background working on children’s and Hallmark holiday films, Anything for Jackson is an unexpected, but mostly successful, foray into horror. Despite losing its focus in the back half, McCarthy and Richards deliver great lead performances that – coupled with a creepy ghost design and some genuinely unsettling moments – makes Anything for Jackson a worthwhile twist on the exorcism/possession subgenre.
