Panic Fest Film Festival Coverage
Purgatory Jack review.
Purgatory Jack features a race against time in a world full of body part collectors, gangs of outlaws, and one hard-boiled detective.
Festival movies will not contain spoilers.
Purgatory Jack
Directed by Brett M. Butler and Jason G. Butler
Written by Brett M. Butler and Jason G. Butler
Starring Tim Rozon, Alexandra Beaton, Emily Alatalo, Joel Thomas Hynes, Joel Gagne, Lora Burke and Heleene Cameron
Purgatory Jack Review
How do we even begin to discuss Purgatory Jack? If you are looking for something original (and fun) this is a movie you might want to seek out. More of a weird ride than a wild one…it isn’t bound by many rules. Taking place in, you could probably guess this, purgatory…death isn’t the end that it usually is. The result is a strange mix of comedy, film noir, and colorful characters. Purgatory Jack is a unique world that is fun to spend time in…but could use a good tightening up.
Pop star Viv Vacious (Alexandra Beaton) has died of an overdose. Death isn’t the end, however. She finds herself stuck in purgatory…a wasteland full of people who took their own lives. Hunted by a gang of body part collectors and racing against time…Viv enlists the help of Jack (Tim Rozon) to find her mother who committed suicide decades earlier.
The clock is ticking on Viv because she’s only mostly dead. Paramedics continue trying to resuscitate her in the real world. Time moves much differently in purgatory, as you’d imagine it would. This gives us plenty of time to explore the strange new world Viv is thrust into. Too much time, honestly. The biggest issue facing Purgatory Jack is inconsistent pacing. Some scenes extend far beyond their welcome.
The good news is each new stop on Viv and Jack’s journey presents us with enough style and substance to keep things interesting. There’s a lot of violence in this world. Most of it revolves around severing body parts. Purgatory Jack shows remarkable restraint in the gore department, however. Decapitated heads, severed limbs, people cut in half…they play more like the afterlife in Beetlejuice than a gross-out horror film. A comedic bent is spun onto all of it. Even a drawer full of sex toys made up of actual severed…well…you get the idea.
Rozon gives Jack the appropriate distant, hard-boiled attitude you’d expect to find in an old film noir. Set against the backdrop of an over-the-top dystopian wasteland…Rozon’s ability to underplay his scenes works perfectly. Beaton’s Viv is a determined character more afraid of getting pulled back to life before finding out why her mother left her than any of the ridiculous peril the movie throws at her.
That peril involves a lot of dismemberment. The go to move in Purgatory Jack is hacking pieces off of bodies. This doesn’t mean the end, of course. In fact, swapping body parts is one of the many side stories. The movie explores it in different ways. Sometimes it tells us who the bad guys are. Other times it happens for a laugh. Such is the world of Purgatory Jack.
Part road trip, part gang war…Purgatory Jack throws a lot of things at you. What’s surprising is how effectively they all work in concert to create this world. We follow a conspiracy all the way to the top while gangs face off in battle. Two girls try to become closer through body part swapping while a chase through the wasteland occurs. You can never be sure what the movie will throw at you from scene to scene.
There are a surprising number of side plots going on in Purgatory Jack. It’s fun to see some avenues (literally) cut off by others…but it results in the pacing issues we discussed earlier. Everything has a place in the world created here…some things just may not have needed as large of one. Fun diversions become rest stops far too easily.
Purgatory Jack is funny in a unique and fully formed way. Its consistent tone is an equally consistent delight. At times, obvious comedic characters take the stage. But it’s the world itself that steals the show. It takes a bit too long for the story to start pulling together…but once it does Purgatory Jack heads towards a satisfying conclusion. Recommended for anyone who enjoys seeing filmmakers’ visions fully realized on screen.
Scare Value
The biggest thing to know about Purgatory Jack is that the Butler Brothers having lovingly crafted a world for you to visit. It doesn’t nail every beat…in fact it occasionally can’t keep time at all. But when it hits the right notes, it creates beautiful music. You may not want to spend as long as you will in some moments…but you’ll constantly be intrigued by what the next one will bring.
