Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971)

I consider Let's Scare Jessica to Death to be one of the most haunting and eerie stories I've ever seen. This is a rare case where every aspect of the picture clicks together to make an unforgettable film. Director John Hancock (Bang the Drum Slowly, Twilight Zone episodes) laces the movie with an almost unbearable paranoid tension. Zohra Lampert is the standout among the cast in the role of young Jessica. Her empathetic performance was key to the success of this movie.

The story centers around Jessica, a young woman spending some time in the small New England countryside after her release from an institution following a nervous breakdown. Right from the onset the tension starts to subtly build as Jessica becomes suspicious of everything and everyone around her. Once she takes a short ride in a ferry there's no turning back for her or the viewer. I don't want to give away the details of any particular scenes but suffice it to say this is the kind of stuff that creeps inside my head and makes me feel afraid to be alone. The whispering used is frighteningly penetrating (not like the garbage seen in The 6th Sense) and the intentional ambiguity is thought provoking as well as nerve racking.

That being said, I think it's important acknowledge how subtle the undertones of this movie really are. The most prevalent theme is that of reality vs. perception. While this area has been visited countless times by film makers, this outing remains particularly strong due to Lampert's outstanding performance. An interesting spin on the somewhat tired theme is that Jessica is fully aware that she might be hallucinating everything thing going on around her but it doesn't make the events any less terrifying (such as a ghostly woman rising from the lake). Jessica's ambiguity is similar to that of George A. Romero's Martin in that the audience is drawn into the perspective of the character and doesn't have any better chance of coming to a definite conclusion than the characters themselves. There are also more subtle undertones of intolerance, which is mostly embodied in the cast of hippies seeking refuge from the rest of society. This does date the film slightly, but a patient viewer should be able to look past the outside (hippies) and see this as a passive metaphor for persecution in general.

There's only so much I can say about this movie in a short review. For me, most of the brilliance was embodied in the fact that this film has a very personal feel to it and is likely to have a different impact on everyone who watches it. Not to get pretentious or anything, first and foremost this is an excellent psychological horror movie that delivers the goods in just about every aspect.

Unfortunately, at the time of this review the only way to view this movie is in the full frame home video released by Paramount in 1984 and again in 1991. The 1991 release features the poster art taking up the entire front of the box while the 1984 release features a scaled down version. The backs are similar but the 1984 edition has two additional pictures, which make it look more like a horror film. I'm unaware of any DVD or Laserdisc every being released but I sincerely hope for one in the near future. I would love to see a company like Anchor Bay get a hold of this one but I would be satisfied with a Paramount release also since their transfers are generally top notch (even if the DVDs are usually lacking in extras). Whoever would release this though, I would love to see them use the original poster art as this is one of my favorite posters of all time!