Let's Scare Jessica To Death
Year: 1971
Director: John D. Hancock
Written by: John D. Hancock, Lee Kalcheim
Threat: Ghost-Vampire
Weapon of Choice: Knife
Based upon: none
IMDb page: 
Let's Scare Jessica To DeathYear: 1971 Director: John D. Hancock Written by: John D. Hancock, Lee Kalcheim Threat: Ghost-Vampire Weapon of Choice: Knife Based upon: none IMDb page: |
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Other movies in this series:
None
Rish's Reviews
The tagline says it all: "Something is after Jessica. Something very cold, very wet . . .
and very dead."
Poor Jessica, just released from an institution after a nervous breakdown, along with
her husband and his friend, moves into a creepy New England farmhouse, where they
find a young woman squatting there. Being hippies, they invite her to stay. But all is
not well for our poor Jessica. She starts to see and hear things that are decidedly
unreal, but disturbing nonetheless. Or are there really such things as vampires and
ghosts and crazy old people in this little town?
This is one of those little movies of yesteryear with a great title that you hear about,
but very few have actually seen. It's similar to Children
Shouldn't Play with Dead Things in that regard, but different in the fact that
it didn't suck.
Made with a very low budget, this film really felt like the Seventies. A great deal of
the dialogue was ADR-ed in (dubbed in after the fact) and they took their sweet time
crafting character, mood, and then scares.
Hippie culture was really central to this film. People are just so cynical and hard now,
some of the attitudes and openness in this seem really alien in 2004. I also found it
interesting that everyone in this sleepy little town were complete assholes, and the
only decent person they meet turns out to be from New York City. Is that the definition
of irony? I'm never quite sure.
Horror movie or not, I found it to be a sad film. Poor, poor Jessica. I pitied her, and
for some reason, identified with her. What a seemingly decent and fragile woman. The
point of the film, pretty much, is: So, is Jessica crazy or not? Similar, in a way, to the
classic "Twilight Zone" episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," the character questions
their own sanity at first, then has others questioning it for them. You know, I've heard
and imagined things that weren't there before, so Jessica was definitely the Me character
in this film. I can't conceive of what it would be like, though, to see such bizarre and
evil occurrences and have people not only disbelieve me, but not even consider what
I'm saying because they're so convinced I'm crazy.
I had difficulty in determining the Threat in this film. Because of the title, I kept expecting
things to twist in a certain way, and when that twist never came, I felt disappointed.
But should I? Was that the purpose of the film's title, to set us up for a reversal that
wouldn't come? Perhaps the twist is that we know none of it can be real, and then
it is.
Because this was a no-budget psychological horror film from thirty years ago, I went
rather easy on it. I looked for positive things to glean from the film, noting spooky
sound effects, disturbing music, and nice visuals. However, had this film come out
today, or in 1993, I would've been much harder on it, possibly even saying that it sucked.
Just like Carnival of Souls, which
is not a perfect film by any means, gets a high rating from me due to its budget and
release date. I judge recent studio fare, like Disturbing
Behavior, Halloween: Resurrection,
and Cold Creek Manor with much
stricter criteria.
It's movies like this that make me want to be a filmmaker. It wasn't great, now, but it
was cheap and fairly effective. I feel most inspired when I see something and think, "I
could do that!"
Best Scare: I've always been afraid of THINGS being with me in the water when
I'm swimming. Especially dead things. Especially living dead things.
Posted: September 6, 2004
Total Skulls: 7
| Sequel | ||
| Sequel setup | ||
| Rips off earlier film | ||
| Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie | ||
| Future celebrity appears | ||
| Former celebrity appears | ||
| Bad title |  |
|
| Bad premise | ||
| Bad acting | ||
| Bad dialogue | ||
| Bad execution | ||
| MTV Editing | ||
| OTS | ||
| Girl unnecessarily gets naked | ||
| Wanton sex | |
|
| Death associated with sex | ||
| Unfulfilled promise of nudity | ||
| Characters forget about threat | ||
| Secluded location | ||
| Power is cut | |
|
| Phone lines are cut | ||
| Someone investigates a strange noise | ||
| Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door | ||
| Camera is the killer | ||
| Victims cower in front of a window/door | ||
| Victim locks self in with killer | ||
| Victim running from killer inexplicably falls | ||
| Toilet stall scene | ||
| Shower/bath scene | ||
| Car stalls or won't start | ||
| Cat jumps out | ||
| Fake scare | |
|
| Laughable scare | ||
| Stupid discovery of corpse | ||
| Dream sequence | ||
| Hallucination/Vision | ||
| No one believes only witness | |
|
| Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth | ||
| Warning goes unheeded | ||
| Music detracts from scene | ||
| Death in first five minutes | ||
| x years before/later | ||
| Flashback sequence | |
|
| Dark and stormy night | ||
| Killer doesn't stay dead | ||
| Killer wears a mask | ||
| Killer is in closet | ||
| Killer is in car with victim | ||
| Villain is more sympathetic than heroes | ||
| Unscary villain/monster | ||
| Beheading | ||
| Blood fountain | ||
| Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc. | ||
| Poor death effect | ||
| Excessive gore | ||
| No one dies at all | ||
| Virgin survives | ||
| Geek/Nerd survives | ||
| Little kid lamely survives | ||
| Dog/Pet miraculously survives | ||
| Unresolved subplots | ||
| "It was all a dream" ending | ||
| Unbelievably happy ending | ||
| Unbelievably crappy ending | ||
| What the hell? |