One of this year’s most anticipated DVD releases is Anchor Bay Entertainment’s Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer, which is arriving at a retailer near you on October 7th. B-D stringer Jeff Otto caught up with writer/star Trevor Matthews who chats about the film that is destined to be come an instant cult classic. Read on, or click the title for more on the film.
Filmmaking partners Trevor Matthews and Jon Knautz are children of the ’80s. In an age of brutal, cringe-inducing torture horror, the duo is trying to bring the fun back to the splatter genre with their feature debut, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer.

The project is their first feature length movie after a series of acclaimed shorts. They financed the movie on their own and are now hoping the limited release catches on and allows them to pursue a series of planned future projects, from a Jack Brooks sequel to an action epic in the grand tradition of Matthews’ favorite movies, Gladiator and Braveheart.

In Brooks, Matthews stars as the titular character whilst also splitting producer duties with director Jon Knautz. The anger-prone Brooks is going nowhere fast in his life. He works as a plumber while attending night school with his less-than-enthusiastic girlfriend Eve (Rachel Skarsten). Ever since Jack’s parents and sister were eaten alive by a cyclops monster during a camping trip, Brooks has struggled to contain his internal rage. When his teacher Professor Crowley (Robert Englund) finds himself with monster problems of his own, Jack realizes that it’s time to stop running from the monsters and face his fear head on. And Jack may have just found his calling and an outlet for his anger along the way.

Bloody-Disgusting spoke exclusively with Trevor Matthews recently about the genesis of Jack Brooks, landing the iconic Robert Englund and his plans for a possible Jack Brooks sequel.

What really sets Jack Brooks apart from modern horror fare is the fun-spirited, Evil Dead style approach to the material. “We had this dark script and we went away from it,” Matthews admits. “I think it was me [saying] ‘Can’t we make something more fun? Let’s just make something silly and we can get away with anything. If the effects look a little silly, people won’t mind. If my acting stinks, there’s still gonna be enough gore that people are going to cheer anyway.'”

As Matthews and Knautz co-wrote the script, they tried to keep an open atmosphere and have fun with the concept.”Me and Jon [Knautz] and beer were the equation,” Matthews laughs.

Initially, Matthews didn’t see himself in the Brooks role. He admits to an acting ambition, but is more personally interested in playing action roles rather than horror. Luckily, Brooks offered Matthews plenty of action to mix in with the blood and guts. “Because this was Jon’s first feature as a director and it was my first time producing a film of this caliber, we knew that it was [going to be] a learning experience film. Jon pushed me a little bit. He said ‘You should play Jack Brooks and it would be great for me writing it to know that you’re going to play the character because I can write stuff that caters to you as a character.'”

The presence of Robert Englund gives Brooks an added level of credibility, especially in the horror community. The role was also a little different from the average part Englund is offered, a chance for him to showcase his physical comedy skills. “We loved the character,” says Matthews. “We had Doc Brown [and] Seth Brundle from The Fly in mind when we wrote him. We were just trying to create this friendship between Jack and the Professor.”

“When we were writing the script, we had this idea for bringing in a horror icon. The first poster that Jon put up [in our new office] was a Nightmare on Elm Street poster. He’s a huge Freddy fan, huge Robert Englund fan. He dressed like Freddy Krueger for like every Halloween. I definitely watched it a few times after I found out he was gonna come on board. It was kind of like the dream list and he responded, so that was fantastic.”

Much like the Evil Dead movies that inspired Jack Brooks, practical effects are employed on JB over today’s more standard digitized special effects. Matthews says the monster effects ended up being the first check written on the project. After that, everything else fell into place and the production was on, full steam ahead. “The next day, they were literally buying their supplies, moving into a warehouse, turning the ovens on and getting a few days work out of our budget. That was when it was really like, ‘Wow, we’re going into production in three months.'”

Brooks is an origin story for the “Monster Slayer” character. Without revealing the end in detail, a potential sequel is certainly set up to follow the future monster slaying adventures of Jack Brooks. BD asked Matthews whether he has plans to return to the character. The answer was an unqualified “Yes.”

“We’re gonna take it to the next level,” says Matthews enthusiastically. “It starts out in the jungles. It’s completely different. There are all-new monsters and it’s Jack Brooks’ adventures as a monster slayer. We’ve had a lot of fun developing it. There’s more action [and] a little bit more world travel. There’s monsters that exist all around the planet and it’s like his medicine.”

“When he doesn’t have a monster to slay, he’s miserable.”