Jacob's Ladder

Jacob's Ladder is also undeniably spooky. It creates and maintains a mood of paranoia, its special visual effects are original and nightmarish, and it has at least three sequences as haunting as anything I've seen in some time. [2 Nov 1990, p.9]

Truly frightening and visually unique, this messy, challenging film is anchored by Tim Robbins' remarkable performance.

Thanks to a remarkable script by Bruce Joel Rubin and the directorial skills of Adrian Lyne, this works as both a highly effective stream-of-consciousness puzzle thriller offering the viewer not one but many "solutions" and an emotionally persuasive statement about the plight of many American vets who fought in Vietnam.

Despite all the confusion, it's a simple case of the script being too ambitious. It may emulate a man experiencing flashbacks, but it doesn't help the audience.

If you ask too many questions about Jacob's Ladder, you're likely to burst the bubble. For all its emotional sizzle and spit, it leaves you hanging. Yet the ride to Lyne's middle-of-nowhere is almost worth it. [2 Nov 1990, p.E1]

Really effective horror films make us participants in the horror. Jacob's Ladder doesn't draw us in in that way. It's a movie about interior states that's all on the outside. [30 Oct 1990, p.1]

Jacob's Ladder means to be a harrowing thriller about a Vietnam vet (Tim Robbins) bedeviled by strange visions, but the $40 million production is dull, unimaginative and pretentious.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

This is so beautifully creepy. It has a fantastic story really well told. The acting is excellent with engaging characters. I preferred the first half but that doesn’t stop it being an excellent film overall. I especially enjoyed the brilliant direction. It’s an intelligent and thoughtful psychological horror thriller.

I feel that Jacob's Ladder was ahead of it's time. So much so in fact, that it wasn't quite able to pull off all of it's lofty ambitions in the most satisfying of ways. Part psychological horror film and part political-thriller. The latter of these is what receives the most attention. So what we end up with is less The Shining, and more The Manchurian Candidate with the occasional bits of grotesque imagery. Outside of a disturbing party sequence and a twisted trip to a hospital's psych-ward, the rest of the "scary" scenes are handed in such a way where the majority of the movie feels like the early build up moments one would find in any other horror film. The kind that are meant to ease the viewers into the experience before diving into the really freaky stuff. Jacob's Ladder missed that opportunity to go all in with it's demonic visions, instead devoting the majority of it's focus to the wartime conspiracy story. Disappointing for sure, but the brilliance is still here so the movie never stopped being influential. Particularly to the Silent Hill video game series, which I feel really perfected the idea here of a person being tormented by nightmarish entities of a symbolic nature in order to come to terms with the more tragic of life's events. Things take a philosophical turn towards the end. As wrapped up as I was in the mystery, it's the message that made it all worthwhile. Jacob's Ladder has something to say that gives it meaning. Not all horror films can say that. Not entirely well-executed, but is significant and interesting enough to be worth a watch for the more discerning horror fans that are into the genre for more than just blood and cheap thrills.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Un film sur la guerre du Vietnam et la folie, l'angoisse et le deuil... entre autres. D'excellentes idées dans cette histoire mais on ne s'en rend compte qu'à la fin, une fois que le scénario a fini de brouiller les pistes. Non pas qu'on lui en veuille, car c'est justement tout l'intérêt d'égarer le spectateur en conjectures... Mais -et le mais est rédhibitoire- putain que c'est laborieux pour en arriver là ! la narration est d'une lenteur terrible -en dépit de la prestation de Tim Robbins- qui entraîne de nombreux décrochages de l'attention, caractérisés par des baillements inopinés... Malgré cette histoire originale et presque poétique, la réalisation bancale d'Adrian Lynne, son apathie, débouche sur un film raté mais encore à peu près regardable pour qui en a la patience.