Despite the central presence of a Hollywood "name" actor (Alexis Arquette, who is quite good indeed) and horror-market hooks, New Zealand director Garth Maxwell's modern-day, grownup dark fairy tale received scant appreciation upon its 1992 release, or since. It achieves Tim Burton-like flights of delirium on a clearly small budget and its own crazy internal logic, and one hopes for rediscovery in a new 4K restoration/repackaging from distributor Altered Innocence.
At some mid-20th-century point, an unhappy wife bolts her household, leaving behind her unfaithful husband and twin children, the latter placed with a Dickensian adoption agency. Daughter Dora (Sarah Smuts-Kennedy), seemingly the luckier of the duo, is embraced by an affluent city couple, who heartlessly leave behind son Jack (Arquette) to be grabbed by a dour and cruel farm family. They beat, belittle and abuse poor Jack—until he manages to escape via a bizarre machine he's invented, a rattletrap blinking thing that hypnotizes and places victims under Jack's vengeful control.
Dora, meanwhile, is bullied at school, particularly over her pining for her brother. Violently assaulted by a classmate, she falls into a coma and awakens with powerful ESP, secretly inherited from her birth mother. This means a cacophony of voices in her head: Jack, his tormentors, and just about everyone else within range. The only person who quiets the storm in Dora's head is Teddy (Bruno Lawrence), a would-be suitor (somewhat problematic in being easily twice Dora's age).
Even when psychic links finally reunite the siblings, there is more turmoil—Jack and Teddy detest each other, for starters—preventing a tidy happily ever after. A few more wild and occasionally very bloody twists ring down the curtain in a strange but satisfactory fashion. The classic film is a throwback Grimm Brothers-esque saga in which modern movie tropes like telekinesis and mad-lab machines effectively take the place of the fairy godmothers, goblins, and trolls of earlier centuries. Director Maxwell, making a feature debut and holding little back, has a painterly talent for camera placement and eerie pictorial compositions.
Sharp-eyed viewers may also spot names in the credits who would go onto blockbuster work in the industry (costumer Ngila Dickson won acclaim on the Peter Jackson/Tolkien trilogies). The Altered Innocence Blu-ray release of Jack Be Nimble is fecund with extras, including shorter films by Maxwell and an interview with the director, plus input by Kiwi film critic Dominic Corry, art galleries, and a feature audio commentary with the cast and crew. Hopefully, it will convince new audiences that Jack is not a dull boy. Recommended as an incipient cult item for general and international collections.