In the small town of Hawthorne, a man discovers a strange box in an empty field with a metal detector; he takes it home to show the Jack in the Box to his wife, but when his back is turned the box devours his wife and snaps shut.

Twelve years later, Casey Raynolds moves from the US to Hawthorne and takes up a job at the local museum, there he meets part time colleague, Lisa; Lisa explains Casey will see little of Manager Rachel and the museum is very quiet. While Casey helps Lisa clear out the storeroom, they discover a strange box hidden away; a handle suddenly appears and Casey turns it, the music plays and a strange clown doll pops out. Lisa calls an expert to meet with Casey the next day and treats him to dinner.

Lisa takes Casey to an American style diner to ‘remind him of home’. Casey asks Lisa what her future plan is, she admits that she hates the museum and there is no plan because her mum is ill, she just needs the money; Casey explains that he doesn’t get much sleep, but doesn’t say why he moved other than ‘a change of scenery’.

During the night, two men break into the museum. One of them finds the Jack in the Box and becomes Jack’s first victim, while the partner in crime tries to find his friend, he sees the figure of Jack down the hallway and hides – only to become victim number two.

Casey finds the door open the next morning and calls Lisa – who complains that it’s her day off; Casey explains there was a break-in and wants to check the CCTV, but Lisa tells him Rachel is too cheap to get it fixed and asks what is missing (but how would he know after only being there a day?). The expert, David, arrives to look at the box. David tells Casey that it likely came from France; he doesn’t know much more than that and can only remember the first name of a Demonology expert: Maurice.

While in the museum, a visitor becomes Jack’s third victim.

The next day, missing person posters have appeared by the museum of the last three victims. Casey researches the box, leading him to Maurice Ainsworth’s website on Demonology where he finds a page on the Jack in the Box; the French used the boxes to trap demons and then released them to do their bidding, Casey laughs at the idea, but then wonders if the toy clown has moved its head to watch him. Rachel arrives and tells him to move the box to the toy exhibit and then he can leave, once that is done Casey says goodbye to the cleaner on the way out and leaves.

While Mandy, the cleaner, wipes down the glass of the toy exhibit the box disappears; Mandy finds it on the stairs and tries to sneak past it, only to become victim number four.

When Lisa arrives at the museum the next morning Casey is already there, sitting in the stairwell and playing back an old voicemail of a woman in distress; he tells Lisa that the voicemail was from his fiance – he ignored her call when she needed him and she died during a mugging, it’s the reason he struggles to sleep at night.

An officer arrives about Mandy, she’d been reported missing and Casey agrees to be interviewed since he saw her last; Casey admits he didn’t know her very well but she seemed normal, but when the officer asks about anything strange Casey falters – thinking back to the box and then brushing it off, suspicion only grows when Casey asks the officer if he believed in the supernatural or if he had encountered something supernatural on a case, the officer says he hadn’t, that stories like that just make people all the more guilty.

Casey tries to call Maurice about the box but is ignored, resulting in him calling an old friend to track him down. After Casey encounters Jack himself, he tracks down the original owner and visits him; reluctant at first, Norman agrees to speak with him.

Norman tells Casey that he spent ten years in prison for his wife’s murder and couldn’t convince anyone else that it was because of the box – now he just wants to be left alone and warns Casey to get as far away from the box as possible. Instead, Casey tries to burn it only for it to be back at the museum the next day; Rachel has decided to come in and fires Casey over the things he’s said about the box to Lisa.

Casey’s friend has the address for Maurice, so he heads up there to discuss the box; Maurice tells him that Casey is the contract holder and Jack will not hurt him, but Jack needs to kill in order to keep living – three years for every kill and his maximum body count is six; Casey must stab him through the heart and recite an incantation once Jack is back in his box – however, nothing of Jack can remain outside the box, or Jack will continue killing until he reaches his total.

At the museum, Lisa goes out for lunch and Rachel becomes victim number five; once Lisa returns, Jack begins to chase her around the museum eventually cornering her and injuring her just as Casey arrives to save her. Jack knocks Casey unconscious briefly and turns his attention back to Lisa; Casey manages to crawl and grab a fire poker, stabbing Jack through the back. The box begins to suck Jack back inside and the clown grips the edge, Casey recites the incantation and the box snaps shut.

The police arrive and arrest Casey, who pleads his innocence; they don’t believe Lisa either but Casey tells her to get rid of the box where no one will find it. While being interrogated, Casey is shown a picture of the remains of Rachel when he notices another picture underneath, he moves it aside to find evidence of a single claw and begs officers to help Lisa; meanwhile, while she buries the box in a vast, empty field, Lisa is the sixth and final victim.

4.5/5: Jack in the Box has some great potential. Both the designs on the doll clown and Jack himself are really well done and creepy; there’s a solid, well thought out lore behind the demon and the film itself is well paced. It’s just missing something to make it perfect…

My only nitpick is continuity. First is that Jack never seems to leave any evidence of his killings until Rachel, where he leaves a bloody puddle and her foot; the second is the timeline of events, from Norman’s wife going missing, to the present day plot of the film the passage of time is stated at twelve years, however Norman says that he spent fifteen years trying to clear his name.

Other than that, a good film. I’m looking forward to Jack in the Box: Awakening.