Despite repeated requests by concerned citizens, neither the Canadian military, the RCMP nor any of the local constabularies has a dedicated monster counter-insurgency unit. Clearly, this country needs a movie that emphasizes the ever-present threat of giant creatures with sharp teeth and a hunger for our blood and brain matter. It also needs a movie about a he-man who’s ready to give those creatures a little payback.

An old-school horror comedy by an industrious posse of Ottawa pals, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer is that movie. Trevor Matthews stars as an angry young plumber who discovers his raison d’être when his night-school science professor (played by Robert Englund, minus his Freddy Krueger sweater) falls prey to an ancient evil. Though slow to get going, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer will still hit the sweet spot for those horror fans who regard the early works of Sam Raimi and Frank Henenlotter as sacred texts. At its best, director Jon Knautz’s debut feature achieves the same pleasing balance of laughs and gross-outs. His movie’s low-budget, low-tech aesthetic also inspires much affection.

“The movie had to be like that,” says Knautz in an interview last week when he, Matthews and Englund were in town for a preview screening. “For me, it comes down to the fact that as soon as you start using computer-generated effects, it’s just a different kind of movie. Vice versa, as you soon as you decide to stay prosthetic, it becomes something that evokes the ’80s. It gets a different reaction from the audience — you feel the practical effects in a certain way. As a filmmaker, I find it just so much fun to do this. You have to think of all these creative ways to pull off the effect. And hopefully, the audience thinks, ‘Oh wow, how’d they come up with that?’”

Englund weighs in on the topic. “Casper Van Dien is an old buddy of mine but you can’t watch Starship Troopers anymore. It looks like an old cowboy movie where the same Indian falls off the same horse three times. I see that now even in the first Lord of the Rings — I see replicant Orcs. We’ve become so sophisticated. But how far can we go before that all starts to look bad? I can watch the old King Kong and the old Wizard of Oz and I don’t want to change them. Those movies are like a book that my grandmother gave me.”

“Using CGI can be like going to buy the new iPod at Future Shop and a year later, you can’t use it any more — you need the newest one,” says Knautz. “With practical effects, you can still watch it 70 years later.”

“Spielberg is a genius but that shark in Jaws looks like shit,” says Englund. “But he had to work so hard getting the suspense going on all around that shark, the movie still works. The same goes for all that bad rubber stuff in The Exorcist, even though it’s Dick Smith and I love Dick Smith. Thanks to what [William] Friedkin structured around that, it all holds up.”

Likewise, Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer’s gore-strewn finale works in large part because of the affection it builds up for its two main characters. Englund is endearingly daffy as Professor Crowley, a character based in part on Christopher Lloyd’s Doc Brown in the Back to the Future movies. Knautz says he cast the Nightmare on Elm Street veteran not because of his cachet with horror fans but because of his seldom-tapped flair for comedy. “From watching the Elm Street movies and hearing the commentary tracks, I knew there was this great humorous side,” he says. “At no point was I thinking about his Freddy Krueger following. I just wanted Robert to sink his teeth into this quirky-professor role and have fun with it.”

Englund says he signed on after watching an earlier short by Knautz and Matthews. “It was like discovering an old Twilight Zone episode from an archive in Rod Serling’s ex-wife’s house or something,” he quips. “Then Jon and I talked on the phone and I said, ‘Can I do a little physical comedy?’ Jon said, ‘Yeah!’ For years I did nothing but comedy. Then I was sidekicks and best friends… then nerds and geeks and rednecks… and then monsters. I’m an old guy and I’ll probably not get another chance to do this so here I am.”

If Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer takes off, there may very well be other opportunities. A partner with Knautz in Brookstreet Pictures (which got private financing for the $2.5 million production), Matthews believes the movie will be the first of many for the fledgling homegrown studio. “It’s about creating a company here in Canada that can make commercially viable films,” he says. “Jack Brooks is by no means going to be our last. Hopefully, we take all of our experiences here with a grain of salt and make the next one that much better. But it’s not a one-off.”

The room dissolves into laughter as Matthews explains the company’s plans for Braveheart 2 and “the feature film version of Two Girls One Cup.” OK, so maybe the country doesn’t need that one but it should be happy to meet Jack Brooks.