1971. The year I was born. Also the year of one of the most quiet horror films ever made. The titular Jessica, her husband, and husband's best friend move to an isolated manse in a town full of all male weirdos with a staring disorder and random bandages. It seems our Jessica is fleeing some sort of psychological trauma, and that's not told to you as much as you surmise it.
Great friggin' place to go to do that. In the book about the making of Caddyshack, Harold Ramis, (rest his genius soul) says after being told that comic wunderkind Doug Kenney has gone to Hawaii with Chevy Chase to kick his drug habit: "You do not go anywhere with Chevy to clean up." The same concept applies here.
"Jessica" has a small cult following, and a little research show many people who watched this in the "tv era" were marked by it, and still get the heebie-jeebies from thinking about it. I can understand that. Beautifully shot, terrific sound design, and a score that bounces back and forth from string-based music you could use at the spa to disturbing synth beats, all add up to a very effective film.
It's very quiet for the first hour, before things get weird, and that's not helped by the fact that no one in this movie is an "actor" with the exception of the lady playing Jessica. She is playing a character on the edge, and she sells it on a layered level. She's fighting for normalcy, while everything in her senses are telling her it's otherwise.
Or is it?
You're wondering if you can finish this movie. With it's 70's tone, and slow build, and the next thing you know, you don't want to do anything else but finish it. "Let's Scare Jessica Death" is creepy as hell, and an example of a film that can be horror, with no nudity, no graphic violence; heck, not a "shit" or "fuck" to be found. Just locale, tone, cast reaction, and background elements.
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