Cast:
Zohra Lampert (Jessica), Barton Heyman (Duncan), Kevin O'Connor (Woody), Gretchen Corbett (The Girl), Alan Manson (Sam Dorker), Mariclare Costello (Emily) Directed by John D. Hancock.
Review:
In fairness, the title did stick out to me for quite a few months. Apparently, the original script for this film by Lee Kalcheim was different from the finished version, as evidenced by the title he put on it: "It Drinks Hippie Blood". When John D. Hancock was approached about being involved, he insisted on re-writing the screenplay that retained the slightest of elements (such as the mute girl) while taking influence from the classic novella The Turn of the Screw alongside The Haunting (1963) to go along with childhood memories of his father (who was a sprayer) and other things. This was the feature film debut for Hancock, who had started directing on Off-Broadway in the late 1960s before getting into film with the Academy Award-nominated short subject "Sticky My Fingers, Fleet My Feet", which caught the eye of certain people that happened to own a chain of theaters and needed someone to direct a script they had. The movie was made without a distributor in mind but Paramount Pictures bought it. Studio executive Frank Yablans was the one who gave the movie its final title, as the working title was apparently just "Jessica". They apparently went with a marketing campaign all about vampires and promo ideas such as write-in contests, ticket giveaways for hearse drivers, you get the idea. Apparently, Rod Serling and Stephen King were big proponents of the film. Hancock followed this film up with likely his most known film in Bang the Drum Slowly (1973) and has directed a couple of movies* to go alongside theater-work in the years that followed.
I guess you can get with the movie on a level of allowing its strange charms to flow over you in ambiguity, particularly since calling it a vampire movie isn't really that fair when it comes to its varying levels of logic. Then I sigh, smirk at that title having seen the movie, and try my damndest to justify the fact that this is a really average movie to sit through. It is entirely possibly one could be unsettled by the events that occur with the movie, what with a strange drifter and an odd town that seems to not like new visitors that challenge the status quo. For me, since one knows there is something lurking in town (namely someone who decides to not kick out a drifter at first sight - hippie foolishness or just being nice - you decide), it only gets interesting when it actually shows something beyond mental unraveling, mainly because the only interesting performance is with Lampert. Of course, maybe it says something about my patience with supposed ambiguity, because I go with something being real from the jump. But Lampert does make an effective performance in vulnerability that might be relatable for those with lingering passions and doubts about who they are back in the world of the supposed stable people. Her doubts do spring sympathy because we care about who she is more than any of the other people in such a casual movie, particularly since the real threat is not too far removed from say, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). At any rate, there are a few interesting visuals to speak of, whether that involves a certain sequence with surprise or one that is more just odd to see with a glimpse at the townspeople. I just wish by the time it was over at 89 minutes that it had a bit more to its ending beyond what you get, which might as well be the equivalent of wondering if you pressed pause on the remote. As a whole, Let's Scare Jessica to Death is a low-key type of horror movie that may or may not find ways to unnerve you based on how you approach a movie that plays its tension to a string of unnerving casualness that may be fit for your timing.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
*You also might remember he was the one who supervised the ADR sessions for Wolfen (1981).
No comments:
Post a Comment