(approximately 23 minutes of the film)
To scare Jessica to death
Plot. Jessica leaves the mental hospital, the husband (together with a friend) takes her to the fresh air in a small town. In the house they meet red-haired hippie Emily. Jessica hallucinates and hears a mysterious voice.
Stephen King long ago praised this old horror movie, decided to check it out. With all due respect to the writer, Scare Jessica to Death is a bit of a masterpiece. It's not bad, but there are a lot of disadvantages to not talk there. In the middle, putting your hand on your heart, it gets a little boring.
But there is a great (somewhat disturbing) atmosphere here. For director Hancock, this is the debut feature film. You can see that the man has no money (the budget was rumored to be less than 200 million). And with the cast, everything is somehow modest (Jessica was played by a little-known Zora Lampert).
And it is also noticeable that Hancock loves horror, so he tries to look like a serious director. Again, it turned out not everything, but for the very attempt, I want to pull “Scare Jessica to death” on the positive side. I’m not going to review it, once is enough.
What does it look like? I don't know, guys. I had Hooper’s Salem Vampires in front of me. Strange town, murky locals. Just no fangs, no Mr Barlow, ah heh heh.
A kind of ghostly vampire color. Plus, Hancock (almost) does not depart from the main character. It affects the psyche, eventually you cease to understand. Whether this story really happened or only in Jessica's head, such things happen.
I will refuse furious recommendations (if you dig into the annals of cinema – nobody canceled Romka Polanski with “Disgust”, for example). In short, think for yourself. The ball scored from above for a curious final.
Jessica (Lampert), who has just been treated in a psychiatric clinic, her husband Duncan (Hayman) and their friend Woody (O’Connor) decide to move to a small town in Connecticut. Upon arrival, they encounter Emily (Costello), a girl who has settled into the house, thinking it is abandoned. Jessica suggests Emily stay in the mansion for a while.
In the film, you are not forced to look at the bloody murders and mountains of corpses, but are offered to look at the ordinary world through the eyes of a mentally ill person.
The stability of Jessica's life, as well as her husband and friend, depends on her sanity. She doesn't want to be completely open to them because she's been clinically proven to be mentally ill. At the top of the inner struggle, there are paranormal and fantastic factors mixed with a healthy amount of personal drama. If everyone already thinks she's crazy and she's forced to believe she's crazy, she can't trust her own perception anymore. It could all be her imagination, or, this girl is actually some creature that came back from the dead.
There are, of course, areas of inconsistency and unresolved threads (for example, a mute girl – who was generally added to the script on demand by manufacturers).
Total: In my opinion, the trouble with the film is that John Hancock tried to make it smarter than the script allowed. For the most part, it's a slow, atmospheric horror movie. If you need chainsaw rumbling, masked killers and blood spatter, stay away from this movie. But if you’re a fan of subtle horror, maybe you’ll enjoy the movie.
6 out of 10
The decision to watch this film came suddenly, and, alas, expectations were not met. But let's start in order.
The heroine with her husband and friend move to a small village. The girl has a mental disorder, she smiles nervously throughout the film, and this smile gives the film a creepy shade. Then in the new house – or rather in a gloomy old mansion with a murky background – they find a resident, a charming red-haired girl, whom they later decide to leave (why? why leave a stranger in a house with an unstable woman?). The four of them go swimming, spend evenings together, cook dinner in turn - idyll. However, the heroine notices the mutual interest of a new friend to her husband, while their friend does not take a loving look from the same new friend.
Then some kind of heresy begins to happen. Thanks to the incorrect accents, the viewer for an hour thinks that the heroine has returned to the disease, when in fact a movie about vampires is a twist. The tape itself is perfectly shot, there are creepy moments, the atmosphere is oppressive, but a lot of blunders and incomprehensibility of the plot just knock out of tune. Especially disturbing questions - why transport a mentally ill girl to a gloomy house on the outskirts, why leave a stranger with unknown thoughts to live with them? since when vampires instead of bites began to leave straight surgical stitches? This is just a small part of it.
The ending leaves the frustrated viewer alone with a sincere misunderstanding of what just happened on the screen. You can enjoy the spirit of the picture only if you do not try to delve into the plot.
Jessica's life started with a clean slate. After leaving the psychiatric clinic, she and her husband Duncan decided to change the huge city to the province, buying a house there to live a quiet life, cultivate a spacious garden and swim in the lake on hot summer days. They brought a friend, Woody, with them to help them settle down. Life in the city seems sleepy, quiet, calm. But Jessica hears voices and strange sounds again, and begins to have visions. This scares her, because she does not want to return to the clinic, and she tries to hide her fear from others. In addition, it turned out that Emily, a hippie girl, settled in their house, who considered him abandoned. The red-haired beauty quickly won the sympathy of men, and Jessica, although feeling inner anxiety, offered the girl to stay with them. There will be someone to talk to, because the residents of the town met the settlers cautiously and clearly unfriendly. And all the residents for some reason were bandaged necks.
John D. Hancock directed this film, the script of which is based on the story of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, a classic of Gothic prose, whose works have been filmed many times. This is the famous “Alucarda”, and “Carmilla”, the novel that inspired Bram Stoker himself. Le Fanu was also filmed by Carl Theodore Dreyer, creating his masterpiece, The Vampire. To the work of the writer turned and Roger Vadim, making the film “And die of pleasure”. The action of Hancock’s story is transferred to the modern time at the time of the film’s creation, and the emphasis is placed on the popular theme of insanity, the borderline state of the psyche, which gave a great opportunity for an ambiguous interpretation of events. The viewer, following the development of the plot, wonders whether all these mystical horrors actually occur or it is only the fruit of the inflamed consciousness of the heroine. In Rosemary's Baby, this duality of perception and finale elevated the film to the level of a masterpiece, coupled with the impeccable performance of Mia Farrow and other actors.
Who knows, if the cast in “Jessica” was stronger, maybe the fate of the film would be different. But actors are the weakest link in the film. A small budget is not a hindrance with a good plot and proper directorial construction of the story, competent injection of a mysterious and frightening atmosphere, even with slowly developing events, if there is a strong acting. All components, except a strong cast, are present in the picture. But it is acting skills that are important in films with a chamber plot and a small number of characters. Especially if the bet is made on mental instability, the borderline of the state of the heroes. An example of such a game, in addition to the already named “Rosemary’s Baby”, are, for example, “Disgust” by Roman Polanski and “Macabro” by Lamberto Bava. Zore Lampert's role as Jessica was not up to the shoulder. To show the state of existence between reality and unreality, it is not enough just to be in the frame with a scattered smile on his face and indifferent eyes. The role was emotionally and psychologically too difficult for Lampert, and the rest of the actors played average. So the retinue did not play the "king" either. Precisely because the skill of the actors does not make “stick to the screen”, the film is perceived as a drama, not as a horror. The slow development of the plot to the modern viewer may seem boring.
Rare mysterious and frightening moments, gradually weaving around the heroine in one tightening knot, become more saturated, mysteries more and more. They, like individual puzzles, add up to one picture. We see everything through Jessica’s eyes, and just like her, we don’t know what’s real and what only she sees, for fear of admitting her fears to someone. And the fear in the soul is more and more: a strange voice calling out to her, a mute girl in white in the cemetery, calling for herself. But my husband saw her too! So the girl is real? Then why did the corpse of an antiquarian led to by a mute girl suddenly disappear when Jessica called everyone to him? Hallucination? And the other weird girl in a vintage dress, rising from the bottom of the lake trying to drag Jessica down? Who is she? A hundred years ago, Abigail, the daughter of the former owners of the house, drowned the day before her wedding. She still lives in her home, becoming a vampire, according to urban legend. From the former owners remained a portrait of the family in the attic, and Abigail on it – just the same face with Emily, even the hairstyle is almost the same. Does no one else notice this? Emily says with a smile that she will never leave here, and even seduces Jessica’s husband and their friend Woody. The people of the town shun her without talking. They're acting really weird. Fears are growing and there is no one to share them with. Her husband is emotionally distant from her, and Emily even tries to drown her, even though no one believes it. The atmosphere of horror thickens, Jessica rushes, choking in her, trying to convince herself that all this only seems to her, it is only a terrible dream. When she wakes up, everything disappears without a trace in the morning sun. But the sun is gone, and the darkness is thickening in her mind. Or is all this really happening and around the really dead, declared her hunt?
The camera work is good, the story sags in places, but in the second half of the film picks up pace. However, the slow, contemplative course of the plot is typical for the cinema of those years. You sink into it gradually, like Jessica into the very lake from the bottom of which there was a horror, trying to take possession of her. Both Jessica and the audience know that there are no ex-schizophrenics, and this very knowledge keeps everyone in suspense: Jessica, her husband, Emily, the audience. It’s like a gun on the wall that has to be fired. Just when, how and who? And most importantly, who will pull the trigger? Who is the victim and who is the hunter and the killer? The viewer has to separate reality from the projections of the inflamed sick consciousness of poor fragile and helpless Jessica, gripped by fear, suspicion and sticky horror.
The goal of scaring Jessica to death was achieved by the director. And not only Jessica, but also the audience to scare John D. Hancock, too. Maybe not everyone, but Stephen King himself called this film one of his favorites. And the master knows a lot about fear, as well as in the exceptional ability to frighten others to death. Do you think it will scare you?
The film, about which the “King of Horrors” flattered, has in the script the classical roots of an important work for action-packed mystical literature. The novella “Carmilla” by the Irish writer Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (Sheridan Le Fanu) opened the way to the imagination of many creators on a given vampire theme, presented both on paper and on screens. It is by its adherence to the basic Gothic style that the book version has gained a lot of author’s interpretations following unique paths of development. For example, later the classical cult of Dracula was born, which received much more fame than its ideological predecessor; the ambiguous director Jean Rollin (Jean Rollin) completely brought out a special style of his paintings, combining a kind of vampire necroeroticism with an admixture of lesbian romance of a blood-sucking pair of pale maidens; and about various independent horror thrash, primitively exaggerating the framework of the idea, I think it is not necessary to speak at all because of its abundance.
The considered tape can be conditionally divided into two parts. The first one leans closer to the personal drama of an individual woman who moved with her husband and friend to a country farm to start a quiet life. Based on the title, the film genre does not scare the viewer, but perfectly frightens by demonstrating an uncomfortable real situation discharged from the clinic for the mentally ill, forced to constantly be under the gaze of oblique glances. It's like round-the-clock silent oppression. Not only society is biased towards such, but even the closest person is a husband who expects a relapse in any awkward word or speculation of his wife. All the time you have to go through your thoughts, count every step and gesture, so as not to fall back into the realm of white walls and straitjacket - this is where fear settled. Such written true problems of the heroine perfectly coexists with no less life conflict, when a new character in the form of a mysterious girl invades the formed trinity. It brings under the roof of the common house the rudiments of jealousy and intrigue, aggravating self-control with self-distrust. Thanks to the author’s desire to slowly explore the inner world of the participants of the events, for someone the cinema may seem long, especially if you expect a direct follow-up to the “scary” genre, so the viewer should be prepared in advance for a smooth, sustained story, which, in my opinion, on the contrary, its special taste.
The second facet of the work is already a full-fledged horror film, skillfully using the primary ghostly mysticism, which at one time was a font for the entire vampire family in literature and cinema. Unfortunately, the majority of modern works are inspired by the style of the comic book, where grotesque, simplification and hyperbole play an important role, which is why blood-sucking monsters closely coexist with the action movie, action, scientific interpretations about viruses and much more, which destroys rationalism and fiction all the original charm that lived in the classic children of the Night. The film follows strict motives, identifying the vampire as some inexplicable mysterious creature, shrouded in the halo of a pale phantom, wandering not alive or dead between the stone cemetery slabs, existing in nightmares, looking from yellowed photos in an old dress, seducing and drinking blood, but not to show sharp fangs in the frame, but as if to gain strength and not disappear into oblivion, forever remaining on the lips of a local legend young and beautiful drowned from the river. The metaphysical approach to the subject is perfectly complemented by a suitable place to shoot in the lonely wilderness, where there is no bustle of big cities, and as if time itself does not flow for hundreds of years, allowing phantoms of the past to easily appear in the present, to be immortal, like our phobias, fears, fear of the dark, ghosts, the inexplicable, which inherently accompanies humanity, growing from ancient myths, fairy tales and legends of the genre of cinema.
7 out of 10
"-No one dies completely. Yes, I hear even the twist comes back.
Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971) is one of those movies that feels the zeitgeist in every way. A company of three people comes to a... village? a small town? In short, they move from New York to the outback, buying a house there and intending to live growing apples in the adjacent garden. This is Jessica, recently released from a psychiatric hospital (apparently, for the sake of her living in a calmer environment, and the move is planned), her boyfriend is a musician Duncan, and their friend Woody, and all they have after buying a house is a hearse where they come (" cheaper than a regular "wagon""), Duncan's double bass in a coffin case, and bedding. But upon arriving at their new home, they find it busy - as the manor was seemingly uninhabited, Emily settled there, a red-haired hippie girl playing the lute. Our characters are very nice and friendly people (in addition, Jessica is very glad that Emily is not her hallucination, because she almost believed that “it started again”), so they offer hippies who, in general, have nowhere to go, live with them. But life is not perfect. Jessica is still haunted by alarming apprehensions, voices, and the image of a girl running by, and she is torn between the desire to share her fears with Duncan and the fear of returning to the hospital; in addition, Duncan and Emily’s relationship seems a little too warm for newly met friends (this is bad news for Woody, who has shown interest in hippies since the first meeting). Stories that a hundred years ago the daughter of the former owners of the house drowned in the same pond where they wash in the morning, and seemingly still wanders around like a vampire, of course, do not help Jessica calm down.
Usually contrasted with “small-town paranoia” (in the style of “Invasion of Body Snatchers” or “Stepford Wives”), built on the fact that your hand washes, and those you know all your life, suddenly change, and “paranoia of the metropolis” (like “Omen” or “Rosemary’s Baby”), associated with the fact that in a huge house your neighbors may be Satanists, and you even do not know about it, and call for help. In Let's Scare Jessica to Death, we see an example of a particular type of paranoid atmosphere that I think is typical of the seventies: the paranoia of the metropolis in a small town. In this established community, everyone knows each other, but you do not know their orders, they frown after you, they do not tell you anything, you rich hippie faggots from the Big City do not like them, and what, in fact, can prevent them from one day dragging you into one of their basements, cutting you into pieces and never talking about it again? Of course, the conflict of "urban" and "village" was used in the genre of horror and later, but often a little differently, in the spirit of rather xenophobia - rural became just creepy strangers, surrendering to incest, cannibalism and generally taboo violations, about life next to them was out of the question; it was in the seventies, when people like the main characters of the film felt a strong, though not always active dislike of a significant part of society, especially conservative, outside the big cities.
However, the main thing in the film is the spirit of viscous, disturbing madness. Jessica can’t be sure of her sanity – once she calms down in one respect, something even more sinister happens. She is afraid of what is happening, but she is not afraid of what is happening. Voices, obsessive jealousy, fear of the local old people, a girl gliding among the bushes and disappearing, trying to drown her ghost ... What is the reality, and what is Jessica's sick imagination? The viewer himself is confused, because in general the film is clearly given through the prism of her feelings (and we understand this), but sometimes - in moments of enlightenment for the heroine? ... - departs from this point of view, and then these fears seem more like nonsense ... For example, Emily seems very unpleasant and even sinister almost from the very beginning, but everyone is so friendly with her, everyone likes her so much - can this impression be reliable? Almost to the very end, and in the fullest sense never, we can only wonder whether we are watching a movie about a ghost or a madwoman. Perhaps these answers do not contradict each other? In any case, Let's Scare Jessica to Death is a scary movie; for the last thirty minutes, my heart was pounding nonstop and goosebumps crawled up my ridge.
Let's Scare Jessica to Death is a great film, a real, classic horror and at the same time an exemplary movie of its time. Above all else, it's just beautifully shot.
I love different horror movies: from thrash to mainstream.
Successful horrors capture your attention. The same movie is a ritual to summon the god Morpheus by 03 (figuratively speaking).
Watching it almost convinced me that I had the good fortune to discover the gift of providence, for I knew from the beginning how it would end. It’s not that the movie is old. You can watch tapes, from which it smells even more mothball, but this smell weathers during the first 5 minutes of viewing, the aroma of alpine freshness and meadow flowers begins to reign in the air. Here you feel like a moth, which when trying to taste spiritual food is poisoned with mothballs with special cruelty. Special cruelty - soundtrack of this "retro horror". This is one of those phenomenal films where music is scarier than film. What's the cruelty here? And the fact that Morpheus has already come down to you, you are safely immersed in a dream, and here is this creepy music, whispers, sound effects. It's brutal and exhausting, you know.
Any horror story is based on a particular fear. This film is built on the basic human fear of something new, the fear of going crazy and self-doubt. If you are close to these fears, then you may like the film, despite the annoyance of our old friend Morpheus.
The plot is simple: the characters move to a new house, meet a flower girl, trust which can not be, because everyone in 1971 knows that hippies suck the blood of their parents, a lost generation, drunkenness, drugs, debauchery, well, you know.
Film crew: The director is talented, the actors are convincing, but the script together with the director was written by the priests of Morpheus, figuratively speaking.
Intrigue of the film: it was imagined or not freshly cured by a specialist in mental disorders of the main character Jessica that the flower girl is not a daisy, but a real carnivorous predatory flower. That's it! You were thinking!
"Never Trust a Hippy" (as Americans say), beware of strangers, do not trust realtors. And a bonus to morality: the authors make us understand that if we, having listened to the soundtrack to their film, get a nervous breakdown, we should not forget (as the main character forgot) that after the hospital you need to continue to drink pills that the doctor carefully prescribed, do not be stubborn, the doctor knows better.
In general, when you wake up from the “party” with Morpheus and rewind the slider of the DVD player of the finished film back to see what happened in the finale, the denouement of this mystical traction is unlikely to surprise you.
And one question will turn in my head: “Why?” Why did I have to watch this? And then you remember this negative review and realize that bad “advertising” is also “advertising”, again figuratively speaking.
Hello to Morpheus.
Score – 5, I had insomnia, the film could be perfect “sleeping pills” by 10 points, if not for the soundtrack.
5 out of 10
Probably, the creators of horror films will never leave the haunted houses, which is understandable - where else can you come up with so many different horror stories than here? The story of young Jessica does not depart from the accepted plot moves, but, nevertheless, differs in some incomprehensible attraction.
From the very beginning of the film, the viewer understands that Jessica is clearly not of this world. Later we learn that she underwent a rehabilitation course in a psychiatric clinic, but the drugs help much worse than autosuggestion, and therefore our heroine often persuades herself to remain calm and not show her appearance when she is visited by auditory and visual hallucinations. However, she does well, but the fact remains that Jessica is different from all other people and sees what no one else can see.
Appeared at the very beginning of the tape, another entertaining heroine - Emily, almost immediately pushes the viewer on not at all joyful thoughts, especially after she throws unambiguous glances at the men - Jessica's companions, one of whom, incidentally, is her husband. Then things go very strangely: Jessica can't contain her emotions when, walking around the cemetery (also a strange entertainment), she spots a girl in a white dress that leads her to the corpse of the owner of a local antiques store. Jessica's husband thinks she's crazy when the corpse disappears safely, and begins to look at Emily, whom Jessica herself has asked to stay at their house if she has nowhere to go. The relationship between all the characters wraps up in a complicated tangle, and only one Emily feels great. This is provided that the terrible secret of the house is revealed - a tragedy!
What stands out in the first place - the incorruptibility of directness and simply terrifying charm without extraordinary mystery - Jessica is really not mentally healthy, no one is going to argue with this. The title fully justifies its content, and, admittedly, it pleases in full. Here the viewer is just surprised to look further, hoping for at least some explanation, but then everything gets even more complicated, and we, like Jessica herself, just trying to make sense of what is happening: corpses? Ghosts? Vampires? What else will this tape give us?
The atmosphere of horror is created simply amazing: it is a long time I did not experience this anxious feeling in anticipation of something frightening. This is despite the fact that the film is clearly not focused on the picture, but on the self-suggestion of the audience - say, hold on, now it will be scary. And this move works one hundred percent! However, it is necessary to mention some moments that eluded the viewer at first, but did not make sense until the end. For example, what role did the girl in the white dress who met Jessica play?
However, we must pay tribute to the creators: despite the slightly strange behavior of the characters of the tape (especially always Jessica’s mysterious smile even in moments of fear, which can only be explained by her shaky psyche), the film turned out to be a beautiful horror film that can even after so many years make the viewer not just look and forget, but also try to understand the essence and answer the questions asked by Jessica in the finale. Overall, it's amazing.