Rating of
4/4
Jacob's Ladder.
TrifibianTerror - wrote on 11/25/09
Jacob's Ladder.
CONTAINS SPOILERS.
A chilling horror in which Jacob, a New York postal worker, recieves hideous demonic visions of bizarre creatures in the city as he starts to lose his mind and get flashbacks of his Vietnam war days, and uncovers a sinister government plot to make sopldiers become killing machines and lose their emotions, in a project called ''Jacob's Ladder''
I heard this film inspired the popular and terrifying Silent Hill videogame series, and I can see the connection. A normal man with a normal life is thrust into a nightmare world of secrets and madness and is revealed to have had a strange past life himself. Whilst Silent Hill was all supernatural, Jacob's Ladder is more mental and more on the level of conspiracy, even if it is rife with monstrous visions and madness, although it does reveal itself in the very end as something more.
The writing and direction of this film are superb, as are the performances, and its effects are not over the top, being very creepy, espcially with the faces that seem to peer out of windows on trains and cars. The scene in the hospital is especially effective, showing just how weird this film can go.
The twist ending in which it is revealed Jacob's entire experience was a test of his soul to live or die could annoy some people, but I found it rather adequate, rather than the government experiment explanation, which is a rather old cliché now.
All in all, Jacob's Ladder is creepy little cerebral thriller/horror that is great for when you need something totally out there to watch, other than the abomination that is REPO: The Genetic Opera!.
I heartily reccommend you see this film, buy it and keep it out front in your collection.
A superb film.
