Jacob's Ladder (1990)
Directed by Adrian Lyne
Written by Bruce Joel Rubin
Starring Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Pena, Danny Aiello
Release Date November 2nd, 1990
Box Office $26.9 million
Director Adrian Lyne is known best for his sexy, sweat-soaked thrillers about cheating husbands, scheming women, and rich guys who pay for sex. So, seeing that he's also the director of a gritty, Vietnam era horror movie like Jacob's Ladder is a little jarring. Now, of course, he does throw in needless nudity, Elizabeth Pena's breasts are lovingly captured on screen for no particularly good story reason, but otherwise, Jacob's Ladder is a grand departure for the tawdry director of admittedly zeitgeist grabbing sex thrillers.
Jacob's Ladder tells the story of a deeply haunted Vietnam vet named Jacob, played by Tim Robbins. Jacob nearly died in Vietnam after his unit was the subject of a violent surprise attack. Jacob himself was stabbed in the gut and had to have his intestines pressed back into his body before he could be taken back to the base hospital. Jake remembers being gutted by a bayonet but he also has another memory that he cannot quite reconcile. Just prior to his being stabbed, Jacob's unit seemed to be having severe hallucinations and overdoses.
Is it a dream or a memory? Jacob cannot tell. However, when Jacob survives a pair of attempts on his life and compares notes with some of the members of his unit, it appears that there may indeed have been more to this firefight than a surprise attack. Meanwhile, Jacob isn't sleeping, he's in desperate pain from a back injury. Thankfully he has a benevolent chiropractor named Louie (Danny Aiello) who acts as friend, confessor, therapist and guardian angel. Louis is seemingly the only one able to comfort the ever-tormented Jacob.
On top of his traumatic near death in Vietnam, Jacob lost a son before the war. Gabriel (Macauley Culkin), was struck and killed while riding his bike. Jacob's life has been a mess ever since. Despite having two other children, Jacob fell apart, his marriage to his wife, Sarah (Patricia Kalember) fell apart and then Jacob nearly died. It's no wonder that he can barely function and gave up life as a Park Avenue Shrink for a relatively more peaceful and less stressful job as a postal worker. Boomers and Gen-X'ers are making dark jokes right now, millennials are a bit confounded and thinking yes, being a postal worker would be less stressful. Both sides are right.
Anyway, that's Jacob's Ladder. Jacob barely functions, survives a few attempts on his life, has a couple more near-death experiences and begins seeing demons. He has meltdowns at any function he attends, when he's not sick he's obsessed with his time in Vietnam. He's slowly destroying his relationship with his girlfriend, Jezzie (Elizabeth Pena), while she may have a secret related to what is happening to Jacob. What is real and what is a hallucination begins to intermingle into a confusing mélange of disconnected horror images that all mean nothing when the ending is revealed.
Find my full length review at Horror.Media
