Day Seven: Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971)
Wow. Let’s Scare Jessica to Death really isn’t the movie I expected at all. I remember seeing the VHS box at the movie store, and being afraid to rent it based on that title alone. I had already been appropriately desensitized to violence with Freddy, Jason and whatever other vengeance seeking corpses were available, but the idea of a group of people getting together to drive a young woman insane was too much for this nine year old. I wasn’t interested in (or willing to deal with) psychological violence just yet.
So I never watched the film until last night, and I have to say that the nine year old Chuck (though it was Charlie at the time), would have been disappointed. For one the film is atmospheric instead of gory (a no-no for nine year old Charlie) and two the film isn’t what the title implies. The atmospheric part is better for 28 year old Chuck. The plot is neither better or worse, though, as we’ve already established, few horror films live up to the imagination of a frightened child.
The title doesn’t entirely lie. The film is about a young woman named Jessica, (Zohra Lampert) who’s feeling a bit fragile after a recent stay in a mental institution. Jessica and her husband decide to buy a house in a remote countryside so Jessica can recoup in peace; a good idea in real life, but never in the realm of the horror movie. Her friends aren’t the problem though, its a more traditional, less scary, force at work, and the film, if you’re paying any attention at all, tips its hand real early with a photo found in the newly acquired, possibly haunted house.
I complained yesterday that 1408 was well crafted but let us off the hook too easy. Let’s Scare Jessica to Death is not as well crafted, but doesn’t let us off the hook. Jessica solves the mystery, but the movie is quick to point out that that doesn’t really improve her situation, in fact, the mystery may not even exist to begin with (though the movie doesn’t do a whole lot with that possibility.)
The reason to see this low budget little chiller is the atmosphere and an impressively sustained all around general eeriness. I was never too involved in Jessica’s plight (she’s not particularly sympathetic) but the sound design and that creepy as hell lake in late autumn worked on me the way I’m sure it was intended to. Let’s Scare Jessica to Death feels like the way you’d dream about a horror movie the night after watching it; things are hauntingly vague and tradtional filler scenes seem to be missing. People come and go here for long stretches of time unaccounted for. This may have been poor juggling in the script department but it ultimately works in the film’s favor.
The director here, John Hancock, has a light touch. He doesn’t pound away on the score or the things in the background or the faux jump scares, everything is hushed and every shot is held a beat longer than you expect or want. About an hour in you realize that you may be authentically uneasy when Jessica decides to take another dip in the lake. What is it about lakes in Autumn anyway?
Maybe its because only certain things can stand to be in water that cold.
October 7th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
As a kid, this movie would scare the crap out of me whenever it would play on local late night TV…and I don’t think I ever watched it. Parts of it maybe. I think I could make a whole list of movies that scared me as a kid that I never saw.