Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971)

Jessica goes to the Connecticut countryside for some rest following her release from an institution where she has just recovered from a nervous breakdown. She arrives with her husband and friend but the three find little relaxation. Instead they become entangled in a creepy tale of the supernatural which involves murder an attempted drowning a seance disappearing bodies vampires and constant torment for Jessica. Her marriage is strained she hears voices and she can t escape the mental turbulence which haunts her for there really is something after Jessica.System Requirements:Running Time: 88 MinutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR Rating: PG-13 UPC: 097360809343 Manufacturer No: 080934 Product Description

Another of many great '70s cult horror classics

In addition to being a great cult horror movie, this release is notable for featuring Zohra Lampert in her only leading role in a motion picture. Outside of her tiny cult fan base, Lampert is terribly underrated, despite her versatility and extraordinary emotional range, which are as thoroughly explored in this movie as they were in "Pay or Die" and "Splendor in the Grass." The majority of Lampert's screen career consists of guest roles on numerous popular television shows, for which she's been recognized. But most of her best work was accomplished in feature films, and her manic performance here is an especially fine achievement.

Lampert portrays the titular Jessica, who moves to rural Connecticut with her husband and a close friend after her discharge from a mental institution. They arrive at their old, massive, newly-purchased country house to find a comely squatter living there, and no small number of ornate antiques. Even before her arrival at this new home, Jessica sees ominous figures and hears disturbing voices, which become significantly more prominent and menacing as she settles into her surroundings. As circumstances worsen, both Jessica and the audience struggle to determine if her nightmarish experiences are real or symptomatic of a deranged mental state.

If you're looking for gore, shocks and excitement in a horror movie, this won't suit your expectations. Instead, "Let's Scare Jessica to Death" functions similarly to "Carnival of Souls," slowly developing an unbearable atmosphere of dread and suspense that only ceases at the story's end. Paramount distributed this movie during the initiation of the studio's revival following its postwar decline, and the result was a modest box office success; this film could have easily been just another early '70s horror feature to have been run through the drive-in and grindhouse circuit before being discarded and forgotten. Fortunately, "Jessica" has been recognized as a minor classic, and one of a relative handful of horror movies that implement subtle techniques to convey an ambiance of subdued terror. August 30, 2008

Really?

Poor Jessica! She's just gotten out of a mental institution. We don't know why she was there. She is skinny and smiles a lot, often at inappropriate times. A nutter, I tell you! Her mostly mute and unattractive husband takes her to a house he has recently purchased in rural who cares. I guess he never visited prior to the purchase, because he certainly would have found the spaced out squatter chick, and run into the mean townspeople with strange slashes on their bodies. Jessica and boring husband bring along Mr.Mustache, who looks like a porn star/creepy hippie with a monotone voice and bad hair. The squatter lady is invited to stay. She has sex with the husband. She's a vampire, I think. Gaps in the plot abound. Through it all we're reminded: Jessica might just be imagining this, which really doesn't make sense. Aside from the voices she hears that sound exactly like the LSD vampire lady, there are no other hints it might be all in her head. Argh. Stupid movie. Without the nostalgia mentioned in a high percentage of the positive reviews,this is a poor film. I enjoy psychological spookies, as well as seventies fimn, so this was a big disappointment. Two stars and a sigh (the cover makes it look so good!). August 23, 2008

Scared, but not QUITE to death...

How, as a horror afficiando, I managed to make it to 2008 without having seen this movie even once, as a teenager or a 20-something, on a Saturday afternoon "Creature Feature" is beyond me...but I watched it for the first time last Saturday afternoon at age 50 - and was just a bit torn between the few quiet scares, the few substantial plot holes, and the huge feeling of nostalgia for this type of atmospheric movie you rarely see anymore.

I had read that this movie was loosely based upon J. Sheridan LeFanu's exquisite vampire novella "Carmilla" - and I'd have to agree that it was VERY loosely based upon it, but in a couple of particulars that many of our companion reviewers here DO seem confused about, so perhaps a mention of these items is worthwhile: Carmilla WAS able to appear in daylight as well as nighttime, and while it was briefly suggested in LeFanu's book that Carmilla had been another vampire's victim and thus became a vampire herself (her creator had possibly even been a member of her vast noble family), it was also said that suicides generally became vampires. Thus, Emily could appear in the daytime, and while it was never outright claimed in the movie, my feeling was that she was a suicide on her wedding day ("never even got to wear her wedding dress") which could explain her vampirism.

I'm still not entirely convinced Emily was a vampire, however...my theory is that the character of Jessica more resembles the character of Eleanor Vance in "The Haunting of Hill House", in which case, Jessica may very well have imagined the whole set of incidents and even been responsible for them herself. THIS is a great and subtle point in this movie, and one that keeps you asking yourself afterwards, what the hell really DID go on with Jessica and Emily?

While I do love these moody, misty, dark lake on the edge of abandoned house type movies, I have to agree that some of the plot points were offputting: why would a back-to-nature hippie like the couple's live-in buddy seem so fascinated by continually spraying chemicals on the apple trees - just to give that guy something to do in this movie? He didn't seem to have much of a part otherwise, except to be a potential "partner" for Emily, who was clearly not attracted to him. What purpose did the "girl in white" serve - she was clearly alive, altho ostensibly a victim of Emily's as well as the townsmen, and if she was trying to demonstrate to Jessica that all was not well in the sinister little town or in the big black lake, I'd say there were other more significant examples of this, without her doomed interference. She and the hippie buddy seemed like Star Trek "Red Shirts" to me - just there as fodder,to be either killed by Emily or by Jessica, and the "shock" sequences of both their murdered bodies did little for me (I was a little more shocked at a town full of middle-aged or old men living with ONE young, attractive girl amongst them. What was that all about?). As for the hearse and the grave rubbings, I have to believe this was part of the married couple's lifestyle BEFORE Jessica was institutionalized, and thus not an immediate contributing factor to Jessica's further illness - altho in the long run, perhaps this strange attraction to these implements of death contributed to her initial breakdown, who knows? I think the movie was simply suggesting, this is the type of thing hippies do - drive around in ex-hearses just to shock the "plain folks", and while away the hours in abandoned cemeteries, doing grave rubbings to hang on their walls next to their American flags and Peter Max posters.

Things I DID admire: almost every interaction between Jessica and Emily, including the interlude in the attic, the wicked-scary little tussle at the lake, and the assumption of Emily JUST OUTSIDE Jessica's locked bedroom door, murmuring that she'd never go away...NEVER. I loved the grave rubbings whispering as they lightly blew against the walls, and all the moments of frightened, dark internal thought Jessica had, while grinning her strained, hard grin externally at everyone - "See? I really AM ok!"

Overall, a great little semi-cheesy movie for me, one I will watch again. Get yourself past the few weary plot holes, and decide for yourself - did the creature Emily wind Jessica up into madness again, or did Jessica "suggest" the whole great bad thing to herself, and act upon it?
July 21, 2008

More Fun Than "Repulsion"

"Let's Scare Jessica to Death" (1971) is another of the obscure films I saw at base/post theaters during my military days. It was certainly better than average and many of the images (especially those of the pesticide sprayer) have stayed with me through the years.

The film is more psychological thriller than actual horror. While it does have some macabre elements, most seem inserted for no real purpose; the title character likes to ride in the back of an old hearse with a coffin size contrabass case, she spending a lot of time in cemeteries, and she decorates her bedroom with tombstone rubbing's (just a typical Manhattan chick I guess). The film should appeal to anyone who enjoyed "Carnival of Souls" (1962), "Repulsion" (1965), and "Heart of Midnight" (1988).

Like the other three films, "Let's scare Jessica to Death" is a somewhat ambiguous story. But unlike some current viewers, back in 1971 no one considered this a vampire film or something with any supernatural elements. It was promoted as straight psychological suspense. The ambiguity was between whether a specific sequence was Jessica's imagination or a part of a conspiracy by her husband to drive her completely insane. The conspiracy idea derives from the title and from some of the obviously staged scares.

Working against the conspiracy/imagination idea are film conventions, which would normally require any scene in which Jessica is not present to be a truthful depiction of events (not her hallucination nor something staged for her benefit by the other characters). But occasionally directors and editors don't play by the rules. They already have the advantage of including only material they want a viewer to know, and they can include it in ways that should lead to a particular interpretation. In this case they cheat and the ambiguity is deliberate, an easy (insert lazy here) way to give some depth to an otherwise shallow storyline.

Directed by John D. Hancock, the title role is played by the ethnic-looking Zohra Lampert. The film is book-ended by the title character's voice-over narration; showing that at least physically she was none the worse for the events. But in her commentary Jessica discloses an uncertainty as to whether any of the events actually took place, or at least that looking back they do not seem real to her.

Jessica is recovering from a nervous breakdown and her classical musician husband Duncan (Barton Heyman who would work with Director Hancock again in "Bang the Drum Slowly") is moving her out of NYC to a Connecticut apple farm. The couple is accompanied by Woody (Kevin O'Connor), a friend from the city. Because the film often feels like "Alice's Restaurant" (1969) I've always assumed the name was Hancock's tribute to Woody Guthrie.

Things quickly go off-kilter as the trio finds that the local villagers are strangely hostile and that a young redhead (Emily played by Mariclare Costello) is living in their farmhouse. We learn that Jessica's husband invested virtually their last penny in the farm. None of the characters are much in the photogenic department but Emily has no problem getting the two males interested. They become so pre-occupied with her that only Jessica sees another young woman (a pre "Rockford Files" Gretchen Corbett) wondering around the farm or notices that all the men of the village have strange scars on their necks and faces. Or is all this just Jessica's imagination? No one is telling.

Although the establishment shots feature a New England countryside in full fall color and the production design is quilting bee country; the camera work, score, and editing manage to transform this niceness into something atmospherically creepy. This is the film's real strength as the casting, scripting, and acting for the camera direction are nothing to write home about.

The 16X9 DVD comes from a nice print and has no audio problems. It also has no special features so don't expect any story clarifications from the cast or crew.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child. June 1, 2008

LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH - Was a moody, atmospheric horror film.

I first saw LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH on a Sunday night when it was released in 1971 in East Hartford Connecticut. On my first screening I realized the movie was not great, but managed to enjoy it very much. In my book this was a three to four star film.

The primary elements of the movie were mood and atmosphere, which this film had plenty of. There were no special effects to speak of, no great make up, almost no gore and little violence. None of the usually employed horror move tools were present except for the selection of moody on-site shooting locations in Connecticut, the almost constant sound of a gentle wind and the sound of Jessica's thoughts at suspenseful moments and very appropriate music and sound effects.

I still don't know what to make of this film but find myself drawn to it time and again when in the proper mood. I see ratings by fans and critics alike range from five to a single star heavily skewed towards higher ratings. I think many people may have enjoyed this film because of the mood, pace and great atmosphere without necessarily realizing it.
May 26, 2008

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