Based on the title, I had assumed that Let's Scare Jessica to Death would be some sort of prank gone wrong film. But that's far from the case. (Really, aside from being memorable, it's a pretty bad title.) I can't get too far into it without treading into spoiler territory, so sorry if this is brief. But it's a solid flick that I think fans of moody 70's horror (like me) could easily get into.
The film is about Jessica (surprise!), a woman who has recently been released from an institution following a nervous breakdown of sorts. The film gets us into Jessica's head right away - we hear her narrate her thoughts as she and her husband Duncan, along with their groovy pal Woody, move out into the country to escape from a hectic life in the big city. Duncan has sunk their life savings into an abandoned apple orchard, and the three of them are planning on getting that up and running again. But the small town the orchard is in doesn't take too kindly to strangers - they are super rude to them and basically call them hippie scum. (Although they seem too old to be hippies. While the middle-aged hippie is probably a thing in real life, I think they are underrepresented in movies.) Before they even *get* to the orchard, Jessica is seeing strange things and mysterious people... can the others see them? Or is Jessica just going crazy? Given her recent institutionalization, she's hesitant to share her experiences.
Once they get to the orchard, they find a young woman named Emily (Mariclare Costello) squatting in the house. But she's the nice, unthreatening kind of squatter, and they offer to let her stay. But as the gang spends more time in the house, Jessica's visions start to get more intense and she becomes increasingly unstable. And the only guy in town who isn't a total dick to them tells them that the orchard house has a terrifying history of murder. So are Jessica's visions real? Are her increasingly paranoid thoughts just delusions? Or is there some really scary shit going down in this town? Tune in to find out!
Jessica is the sort of horror film that relies a lot on mood. There isn't much gore to speak of, and it doesn't depend on jump scares to get a rise out of the audience. It's more about fostering a general sense of uneasiness, and it does that quite well. You are never really sure exactly what is going on, and that uncertainty is what drives the film. It's not a mystery in the traditional sense (there are too many unanswered questions), but it's a well-made and serious enough film that you get invested in it - you want to see these characters through to the end.
And since the orchard setting is (frankly) kind of boring, the film pretty much depends on the performance of Zohra Lampert (as Jessica) to create the mood. Jessica's confused narration, along with Lampert's ability to be unhinged yet vulnerable, really make a fine marriage of character and performer. Jessica's whole "deal" is just unsettling, and without Lampert's performance the whole film would just crumble. Costello is good as the mysterious Emily too - she plays her with a kind of blank look and just the right amount of coyness, so you can never quite tell what's going on in her head. Emily and Jessica provide interesting counterpoints to each other... you are inside Jessica's head and know too much about her, whereas you know next to nothing about Emily.
After reading up on the film a bit, I feel like there are a lot of descriptions that kind of spoil the fun - so I'm just going to stop here. Watching the whole thing unfold, with no knowledge of what to expect, made this one a real treat for me. Let's Scare Jessica to Death gets described as a "cult classic," and I'd say it deserves the fan base it has. It's not really campy in any way, and there are no crazy effects or monsters or anything like that. It's just a really well-made, unsettling film with a couple of really good performances. It may be considered a bit slow or underwhelming by today's standards - they truly don't make 'em like this any more. But if you're looking for an example of moody, well executed 70's horror, I don't know if you could do much better.
I would definitely recommend this film.
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