Celluloid Diaries: Let's Scare Jessica to Death

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Let's Scare Jessica to Death

let's scare jessica to death poster

I'll be giving an introduction to John D. Hancock's Let's Scare Jessica to Death at the Offscreen Film Festival in Brussels on March 20th.

In this chilling ghost story from 1971, the fragile Jessica longs for a new beginning, having recently been released from a psychiatric hospital. She isolates herself in an old farmhouse with her husband and a friend. But is she safe from the aftermath of her mental illness? Once she hears the local stories about vampires roaming the countryside, Jessica starts having nightmarish visions that will defy everything she has ever experienced before.

The premise sounds cliché, but believe me when I say that Let's Scare Jessica to Death is THE eeriest horror movie ever made. Whenever someone asks me about my favorite horror film, Let's Scare Jessica to Death is always the first that comes to mind. It has been that way for over twenty years and I'm sure I'll be citing this film as my favorite for many years to come.

A lot of the film's strength has to do with Zohra Lampert's magnificent performance. She makes you experience what it feels like to live in a state of constant fear and uncertainty and to desperately try to fit in when you know you are too awkward to be truly loved.

However, what makes John D. Hancock's film a genre masterpiece is how its eeriness gets under your skin and how it imprints nightmarish visuals onto your memory the way very few other horror films can.

Its dreamlike photography will put you in a sort of trance and the myriad of details depicting death (the hearse, the gravestone etchings, the ghostly appearances) are a foreboding of how that dream will eventually unfold into a terrifying nightmare.

You will probably want to ponder whether the visions Jessica is having are real or not. I urge you, though, to not analyze the story too much. Jessica is a film that needs to be experienced.

P.S. Those of you who read my supernatural thriller, Drowned Sorrow, will probably recognize many elements from Let's Scare Jessica to Death: the dead people coming out of the water, the strange villagers grouping together, the apparition in the lake, the description of the village, etc ;-)

let's scare jessica to death
let's scare jessica to death
zohra lampert let's scare jessica to death
let's scare jessica to death book

14 comments:

  1. Congratulations!
    I'll have to see if it's on NetFlix. I've heard of the film but I've never seen it.

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  2. That's great news!!!
    Congatulations, Vanessa!

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  3. Congrats! It's thrilling to get to intro a movie you love so much. (For some reason I thought this was one of Bette Davis's movies. I guess that one's "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane." lol)

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  4. I've heard of this film, but never seen it. Nice to have a post from you again though!

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  5. Been a long time since a saw a post appear here.
    Good to see you are still alive, that you haven't been scared to death :-)

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  6. Everything here about that book was scary. Glad the sun's out and it's not dark or I'd have to move away from my screen and hide under the bed.

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  7. I've never heard of this film! I have to see it! Nice to see you! I was thinking of you the other day and wondering where you have been!

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  8. I just watched the trailer, I don't think I want to see it! LOL!

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  9. Congrats! Wow. That cover is just intriguing.
    This is interesting. Thanks for sharing the trailer.

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  10. Congratulations! I've not heard of the film, but now I definitely want to check it out. :)

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  14. "Let's Scare Jessica to Death" is a chilling horror film with Zohra Lampert's outstanding performance, transcending clichés and showcasing dreamlike photography and death-themed details. truck accidents lawyer

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