Jacob’s Ladder (1990, R)

Directed by Adrian Lyne (Fatal Attraction)

Written by Bruce Joel Rubin (Deep Impact)

Starring Tim Robbins (The Player) and Elizabeth Pena

As Reviewed by James Brundage

In 1990, we were graced as a viewing public with two of perhaps a dozen horror movies to date which are actually scary rather than funny. One was the Best-Picture winning Silence of the Lambs. The other was Jacob’s Ladder.

In Jacob’s Ladder, Jacob Singer, a Vietnam Vet, is living in the Bronx with his girlfriend Jezebel. He’s haunted by Post-Traumatic Stress of an offensive (shortly before the Tet) that he can’t remember anything but scattered images. Now, the insane world of New York offers to him the strangest things he can imagine: demons straight out of the Book of Revelations, horns and all.

As he goes deeper into his own insanity, he begins losing himself in time: having flashbacks of the mysterious offensive and of spending time with his wife and three children. As it stands in the film, you have no idea which part of it is real.

Although simpler than Lynch’s 1997 effort into the psychotically bizarre Lost Highway, Adrian Lyne does a much better job behind the camera, delivering unto us stunning visuals of demons and other such monsters roaming New York.

Sadly, I am at a quandary as to what information I part unto you. I can neither confirm nor deny what other people may have said, out of fear of ruining one of the most shocking and surprising twist endings: one worthy of a Twilight Zone episode or an O’Henry story.

What I can confirm is the review that states that Jacob’s Ladder “redefines the psychological thriller”. It does. The psychological thriller is a genre so diluted from its Hitcockian original (Psycho) by a dozen years of Halloween-esque cliched horror films that believe the sight of blood itself is terrifying. Hemophobics of the world unite! It has become the genre of hacks and B-films and drive in necking sessions.

Jacob’s Ladder will be a film no one necks during.

Jacob’s Ladder is a brilliant effort, straight from the mind of script doctor Bruce Joel Rubin (Deep Impact), a man repeatedly able to turn out great stuff on his own and good stuff in collaboration with another writer. Tim Robbins shines in one of his finest roles (the first in a string of four great performances including The Player, Short Cuts, and The Shawshank Redemption) ever to grace the medium of celluloid. We are also greeted with Elizabeth Pena, perhaps the most mysterious seductive woman ever on film (step aside, Sharon Stone, you have company).

As the mystery of the strangely lyrical film unfolds in front of you, one can’t help but wonder why the horror genre, the bastard child of psychological thrillers, ever came to be at all. They are this good without die-hard killers, big-busted screamers, and humorless humor. Without those elements, they possess the power to actually frighten someone, a skill that seemed to be lost until this film came out.

What to say to convince someone to see a film that I know to be excellent? Should I say that it actually is an excellent film? Should I tell you that it is the finest psychological thriller that I have ever seen? That it is a mysterious, beautiful, and terrifying film? I think I should tell you all of these things, and more, but I have no means to organize my praise for the film I am extolling. I only hope that you pick up where my words leave off, and see the film.