Genre Horror

Jacaranda Joe (2022)

Item: Jacaranda Joe
Rating: 2.5
Author: Ross McLaren

★★½ — Jacaranda Joe (2022)

There's a particular kind of curiosity that comes with digging up the earliest work of a director you admire, isn't there? You're not really expecting a masterpiece. You're looking for fingerprints, for the earliest signs of the person who'd go on to make the films you love. With Jacaranda Joe, that's essentially the deal on offer: a short piece knocked together in about ten days, on a shoestring budget, with a cast of non-professionals. Manage your expectations accordingly.

And honestly, with expectations suitably managed, it's... fine. It's pretty average. I won't pretend otherwise. You can feel the constraints in every frame, the limited time, the limited money, the cast doing their best without the experience to fully carry the material. None of that is a criticism so much as a description of the conditions it was made under. Student productions and micro-budget shorts live or die on a sliding scale, and judging Jacaranda Joe against Romero's polished genre work would be missing the point entirely.

Because yes, this is George Romero. The same George Romero. And that's precisely why anyone's watching it in the first place, archived and unearthed the way these early curiosities tend to be, passed around by fans who want the complete picture. When you've already spent time with something like Creepshow (1982) or gone back to admire the raw, angry energy of The Crazies (1973), you start to wonder what the man looked like before he had the resources to fully realise his vision. Jacaranda Joe is part of that answer.

And the answer is: recognisable, actually. That's the genuinely interesting thing about it. Even under these conditions, even this early, there's something in the framing and the feel of the thing that carries a signature. It's rough, yes, and it's brief, and it doesn't have the space to develop into anything substantial. But you can sense the sensibility behind it. The instincts are there. A director's eye doesn't just appear fully formed when the budget arrives.

What's frustrating, if anything is, is that it's just short enough and just promising enough to leave you wanting more. There's a version of this material that could have breathed a little, that could have built into something with genuine momentum and character. As it stands, it wraps up before it's had a proper chance to get going. You're left thinking: that would've made a fun full feature. A proper one, with time to tell the story properly. The bones suggest it could have worked.

But we work with what we have. And what we have is a curio. A historical footnote, maybe, but a worthwhile one for anyone interested in where Romero came from and how early his instincts were in place. If you're a completist, or just genuinely fond of the man's work, it's worth your time precisely because it's brief. You're not giving up much of an evening. You're just adding a small piece to a larger puzzle.

Two and a half stars. Not because it's bad, exactly, but because it's unfinished in spirit, a sketch rather than a painting. What it shows you is just enough to make you wish there was more of it.

Rating: ★★½ | Year: 2022 | Watched: 2025-08-27

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