‘Jack and Jill: The Hills of Hell’ Review
Stars: Stephanie Lodge, Sophie Jugé, Barbara Dabson, Karell Vertet, Lee Hancock, Elspeth Foster, Richard Kovacs, Kate Sandison | Written by Sophie Storm K | Directed by Adam Cowie
Before going viral with Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, writer, director and producer Scott Jeffrey was already tapping classic fairytales, myths and legends for his low-budget British horror companies Jagged Edge Productions and Proportion Productions – taking familiar childhood tropes and turning them on their heads, oftentimes making a bright, cheerful kids thing onto a film of sheer terror. That path has given us killer tooth fairies, evil leprechauns, a demonic cupid, a terrifying Humpty Dumpty and a Hills Have Eyes-esque duo of Jack and Jill… Perennial kid’s nursery rhyme characters turned into a couple of inbred, hillside-dwelling psychopathic killers!
Unfortunately for The Legend of Jack and Jill things fell a little flat thanks to the one-dimensional characters and the fact it wasn’t really that scary. But that’s OK, Scott Jeffrey and co. Get to try it again with a direct sequel that essentially retreads the same story as the first film but with a new cast of characters ready to be slaughtered in the British countryside!
Just like the first film, Jack and Jill: The Hills of Hell centres its story around grief. This time a mother’s grief at the loss of her daughter Eden, one of the “teens” slaughtered at the hands of the titular characters during the original movie. And again, much like the first film where Eden and her friends headed to the hills to hike a trail in the British countryside in memory of their friend, Eden;’s mum Jo (Stephanie Lodge) heads off into the hills with a group of hired hands and her best friend Nikki (Sophie Jugé) to try and find out what happened to Eden. Oh, and guess what?! That’s another big mistake. Just like the first film!
Can you tell what I’m trying to say? Jack and Jill: The Hills of Hell is without a doubt a redux of The Legend of Jack and Jill, in much the same way Evil Dead 2 was a redux of The Evil Dead, and like those films, this is both a sequel AND quasi-remake at the same time.
And those are not the only things that are rehashed in this sequel. For one, the two titular killer characters once again over-egg their roles. Not only do they grunt at each other in some bizarre, somewhat laughable way but they also roam around whistling nursery rhymes too! I get you’re trying to riff on nursery rhymes and fairy tales etc., but having Jack and Jill literally “whistle while they work” is, for me, a step too far (even if it is used for creepy effect at times). I get that nursery rhymes often have roots in grim realities – Ring of Roses is a song about the plague in the village of Eyam for example – but making the titular nursery rhyme characters hillbilly killers is more than enough; they don’t have to sing nursery rhymes too, surely?
Yet whilst there are a lot of aspects of Jack and Jill: The Hills of Hell that feel very much “been there, done that”, we do at least get a ridiculously maniacally evil performance from Richard Kovacs (Curse of Jack Frost, Dragon Fury 2) as one of the men that menaced Jack and Jill’s mother in the flashback seen in part one (and repeated in this sequel), who is out for his own brand of revenge. Other than that Jack and Jill: The Hills of Hell is essentially the first movie retold with an older cast. If you enjoyed the original that might just be enough to warrant watching this sequel… Just enough.
** 2/5
Jack and Jill: The Hills of Hell is available on VOD and digital now.
