Jitters review

By David Dent

Now I quite liked Marc Zammit’s co-directed second feature, 2024’s Witch, an inventive film that wasn’t perfect but was pretty watchable.

Here grizzled Detective Nick Collymore (Fabrizio Santino, adopting a US accent for no reason apart from he’s reasonably good at it) has returned to duty after a rather ugly incident and is keen to get back in the policing saddle, by intruding onto a crime scene, namely the death of a gamer, Tiff (Jessica Impiazzi), at her computer.

Meanwhile colleague Detective Sam Harding (Anto Sharp) is also investigating a death – this time filmed online. Tech wiz Dean Holness (Jack Cray) has taken his own life via nailgun in front of his many fans. Further investigations have revealed that he was working alongside Tiff on a new AI game.

Other deaths occur and Nick discovers that the game is accessed via a USB. Plugging it in reveals a weird avatar called Jitters, who poses riddles which, if solved, release cash (possibly in bitcoin). But the real power of the game isn’t realised until Nick understands that, once downloaded, the avatar’s deadly reach extends to anything with internet connectivity.

Jitters is a very different beast to Witch, but its combination of police procedural and a modern AI take on A Nightmare on Elm Street and Videodrome has a lot going for it. Collymore’s character is the hardboiled cop more usually seen on TV screens rather than the movies, with family and health problems to contend with. The ‘Jitters’ character, played by Daniel Jordan, no stranger to the micro budget UK fantastic film, is a good few years older than a lot of the other cast members which, together with his odd ‘clown-with-a-colander’ getup, makes him quite distinctive. Jitters could do with tightening up a bit but it’s an ambitious pic for the budget which wisely takes itself quite seriously, and the final scene’s suggestion of a sequel wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world.