The Best Movie Critic   +  review

Watching Hour Preview: Jacob's Ladder

Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins) is a Vietnam Vet with some issues. One issue, for example, is that as he makes his daily rounds as a mailman in New York he sees demons. Horrible sights haunt the peripherals of his vision. Is it PTSD? Was he exposed to experimental psychedelic drugs? Or maybe he actually died in Vietnam, and this is hell. Biblically, Jacob’s Ladder refers to a passage in Genesis when Jacob falls asleep and witnesses a ladder extending into heaven with angels and stuff. What this has to do with the movie, I have no idea.

Neurotic, irrational fear is a pet topic of mine. I overly identify with the Alfred Hitchcock's of the world, for whom the most commonplace experience turns to primal terror because you just can’t shake the feeling that “they’re out to get me.” You don’t know who they are, what they want, or why they’re after you. You’re probably crazy. But what if you’re right? I don’t know if that gut-gripping fear that there’s something very, very wrong in your mundane, everyday life is something everyone can relate to, or if it’s just me. Do you ever go to the grocery store and feel like everyone is looking at you? Do you sometimes fear that everyone else is in on a big secret that you're not privy to? Did I just reveal that I’m a big, neurotic freak? Yes, I think I did.

Attempting to gauge people’s reaction to Jacob’s Ladder, it seems as though many respect the movie more than they like it. Is that because it’s disturbing but not that good? Or is it a good movie, but too disturbing to want to talk about or revisit? An aura of strange reverence surrounds Jacob's Ladder. Some speak of it as one of the most frightening movies they’ve seen. The concept of neuroses, madness, and demon haunting is frightening to me, but is it scary to the rest of you?

On another note...

It seems we may finally be on the cusp of 90s nostalgia. As we get further and further away from that decade it has become painfully apparent that it doesn’t hold the strange revival appeal of the 80s. Nobody’s throwing “90s dance parties.” The 90s in the arts are an oddly maligned decade. As a child and preteen, my 90s were made up of equal parts Jurassic Park, Batman Forever, Armageddon, and the Star Wars Special Editions, so it’s nice that the Watching Hour screens the likes of Jacob’s Ladder, Empire Records, and Trainspotting. It’s as if I get to experience the decade all over again from the POV of someone 7-10 years older than me.

-Ben

The Watching Hour is a weekly film series at the Starz Film Center, highlighting new and old cult, genre, or otherwise bizarro movies. Quite simply, The Watching Hour is usually the best thing to do in Denver on a Friday or Saturday night. From Giallo to schlock, Blaxploitation to Aussiesploitation, zombies to martial arts to who-knows-what, and everywhere in between. This is good ol’ rock and roll cinema spectacle. Not to be missed. (See the schedule, buy tickets, get directions, etc. here.)