"Jackals" is a bit of style, almost no substance, and so scanty on the scares it's not worth the price of admission.

The film's ultimate nihilism makes the whole exercise seem like an annoyingly pointless waste of time-even for a movie that's barely 80 minutes long.

Its run-of-the-mill standoff may appease some hardcore horror buffs, but it offers nothing to the rest of us and will likely be forgotten before the blood on the ground dries.

It's not quite up there with the invasive horror of The Strangers or You're Next, but Jackals still manages to deliver enough genre-specific beats to make it worth a glance for hardcore horror fans.