MovieChat Forums > Jacob's Ladder (1990) Discussion > This is the only movie...

This is the only movie...

posted 13 years ago by mistela67
17 replies | jump to latest

...that actually scares me enough to where I have to stop watching it, sometimes. I'm the type who's not impacted by slasher movies, because I always think in the back of my mind that if I had someone chasing me, I'd just shoot the SOB. Ghost oriented movies, to me, are predictable or silly, and thus don't impact me. Movies about Satan only have limited effect. But any movie about the damned afterlife, stuff that can't be figured out, or analyzed. Those movies get me all the time. This one, bar none, is the best.

When I first saw this one, I actually couldn't sleep for a few nights. No movie since then has had that effect on me. JL is the only move that has ever psychologically bothered me enough to where I can't always watch it.

Good movie.

[–] sfla 9 years ago

Yeah 100% agreed. I remember first watching this as a teenager and I was genuinely shaken up by it. This was powerful.

[–] thething42011 9 years ago

The scares in the movie are also playfully unexpected and throw you out of your focus, which is hard for ghost and slasher films to do as your can usually infer where a scare might be, often being cheap. Jacob's Ladder has a more domestic, sinister approach. The scares are during scenes that you wouldn't think could contain such scares. A couple for me are Jez's demon scene and the "dream on" line. Not only are these instances genuinely frightening, but also depressing.

[–] Horror-yo 9 years ago

Interesting to read. I've been badly freaked out by some horror movies before but apart from being an excellent film, which I fully understand and cherish, this doesn't do anything at all. Watched it again yesterday, would not even think of having issues at night.