“A bad movie about a prank turning bad.”
An ultimate prank goes ultimately awry and creepy in The Jokesters, an indie-horror film directed by A.J. Wedding. Styled as found-footage, the movie transitions from a Jackass-like comedy to a wedding drama to a scare in the woods and finally to a bloody massacre.
The film opens with clips of some of the best pranks of Internet sensation “Prank Masters,” a Youtube badass gang consisting of hunkie leader Ethan (Dante Spencer), his meanie best friend Nick (Nathan Reid), Mexican-in-denial Chris (Luis Jose Lopez) and always-on-the-yes Andrew (Gabriel Tigerman). Their glorious days will soon end as Ethan announces his marriage to beautiful Gabrielle (Yen Jeager), leaving the group and the pranks behind.
The wedding day finally comes but the pranks continue coming. Bringing their camera with him, Nick messes around with the guests. As the best man, he even sabotages his speech for the newly-wed. But it does not end there as he convinces Chris and Andrew to launch their greatest prank against their friend.
Taking inspirations from The Cabin in the Woods, the trio plans to bring nightmare to Ethan’s honeymoon. They succeed but Ethan catches them in the act. Ethan retaliates and Nick finds himself facing his own worst fears. Suddenly, Nick snaps and the prank turns into a deadly chase in the woods.
The Jokesters has both comedy and suspense, but never manages to blend them together. Considering that its first half is the comic part, the film takes a long time to set up. So much is shown about the wedding and their previous pranks, but there is not a single clue as to the horror that will soon happen. So when it comes, it comes at an uncomfortable surprise. Instead of being tense and suspenseful, the honeymoon prank which started the fright turns out to be a bad humor. For a movie which promises horror in its poster, it is very frustrating as the scary part only comes at the movie’s final twenty minutes.
This sudden change in genre is also reflected in the characters. It is very confusing as the characters change drastically. The forgiving Ethan turns bitter, pissed-off Gabrielle to a mocker, and happy-go-lucky Nick to villainous psychotic. Things are so sudden that it feels that a different story has been connected to the original one. Thus, there has never been a good marriage between comedy and horror, resulting to a very unconvincing story. The after-credits revelation, which is actually major information, is badly placed and feels unsure, just like an afterthought to make the film’s unsatisfying ending realistic, if not solid.
In effect, the horror part in the film felt unnatural and overacted. The dialogues and emotions are too forced, making the actors looked like silly comedians by shifting from warm buddies to ill enemies. Nick’s underlying jealousy to Ethan and secret love to Gabrielle have never been hinted and his confession feels weird and bad.
The Jokesters is quite ambitious in its effort to stand out among all other found-footage films. Sadly, it fails as it never accomplished a credible and plausible mix of comedy and horror. It is simply another forgettable film in the genre.
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