Jacob's Ladder (1990 film)
Jacob's Ladder is a 1990 American psychological horror film[4] directed by Adrian Lyne, produced by Alan Marshall and written by Bruce Joel Rubin. The film stars Tim Robbins as Jacob Singer, an American infantryman whose experiences before and during his service in Vietnam result in strange, fragmentary visions and bizarre hallucinations that continue to haunt him. As his ordeal worsens, Jacob desperately attempts to figure out the truth. The film's supporting cast includes Elizabeth Peña and Danny Aiello.
For other uses, see Jacob's Ladder (disambiguation).Jacob's Ladder was made by Carolco Pictures ten years after being written by Rubin. Despite only being moderately successful upon its release, the film garnered a cult following, and its plot and special effects became a source of influence for various other works, such as the Silent Hill video game series. A remake was released in 2019.
Release[edit]
Theatrical release[edit]
Jacob's Ladder opened on November 2, 1990, distributed by TriStar Pictures. Jacob's Ladder: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack with the music by Maurice Jarre was released by Varèse Sarabande in 1993 and then by Waxwork Records in March 2020 on a single LP.[18][19] Rubin's companion book, released by Applause Theater Book Publishers on the same day as the film,[9] features a final draft of the screenplay, including the deleted scenes, and his essay on making of the screenplay and the film.[15]
Home media[edit]
The Special Edition DVD was released by Artisan Entertainment on July 14, 1998, containing three deleted scenes ("Jezzie's Transformation", "The Antidote" and "The Train Station") along with several other special features, such as audio commentary by Adrian Lyne and a 26-minute making-of documentary "Building Jacob's Ladder".[20] On September 14, 2010, the film was released on Blu-ray Disc by Lions Gate Entertainment and retains all of the special features of the DVD version, along with two promotional trailers, omitting only a TV spot that came with the DVD.[21][22]
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
The film took the number one spot at the weekend box office in North America, garnering ticket sales of $7.5 million from 1,052 screens.[23] However, the attendance dropped fast and its overall domestic box office result was only $26,118,851.[3]
Critical reception[edit]
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 72% of 68 reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.6/10. The site's consensus reads: "Even with its disorienting leaps of logic and structure, Jacob's Ladder is an engrossing, nerve-shattering experience".[24] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 62 out of 100 based on reviews from 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[25] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C−" on an A+ to F scale.[26]
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times wrote that watching it left him "reeling with turmoil and confusion, with feelings of sadness and despair," and called it a "thoroughly painful and depressing experience — but, it must be said, one that has been powerfully written, directed and acted." He awarded the film three and a half out of a possible four stars.[27] Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that this "slick, riveting, viscerally scary film about what in other hands would be a decidedly unsalable subject, namely death," is "both quaint and devastating."[28]
Desson Thomson of The Washington Post felt disappointed with the film that is "ultimately flat on its surrealistic face, the victim of too many fake-art sequences."[29] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly wrote that "Jacob's Ladder is so 'dark' it sucks Robbins right down with it. By the time Jacob is being strapped to a bed and wheeled down a hospital corridor strewn with bloody limbs, it's hard to care whether the Orwellian image is a hallucination or not. You just want out."[30] Kim Newman called the film "effectively the blunt remake" of Carnival of Souls.[14]
According to IGN's review of the DVD release in 2004, "After movies like Se7en, it may not pack the same subtle horror for today's audiences it did when it was first released, but it's still a great film."[20] IGN's review of Jacob's Ladder's 2010 Blu-ray release called it "an emotionally poignant, creepy horror masterpiece."[21] According to Slant Magazine, Jacob's Ladder is "a bizarrely cohesive hybrid of war movie, character study, art film, and horror flick" and "the very act of watching the film is so emotionally draining that the viewer leaves the film feeling worked-in; the thought of repeat viewings is daunting yet insatiable."[22] John Kenneth Muir called the film's nightmarish hospital scene "one of the most terrifying moments in all of 1990s horror cinema." Muir further wrote: "In its musings about death, about the end we all fear, Jacob's Ladder proves a deeply affecting and meaningful motion picture. After a screening, you'll immediately want to hug the people you love and then go outside and breathe the fresh air, or otherwise affirm your very existence."[31]
Rubin's script was included on the list of "Hollywood's ten best unproduced screenplays" by American Film magazine in 1983.[2] In 1991, Jacob's Ladder was nominated at Horror Hall of Fame II for best horror film, losing to The Silence of the Lambs. The film was also featured in Bravo's 2004 documentary miniseries The 100 Scariest Movie Moments[32] and in the 2009 book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. In 2013, the Jacob Burns Film Center projectionist Andrew Robinson chose it as his favorite scary movie.[33] LA Weekly and Letterboxd list this movie as belonging to the vetsploitation subgenre.[34][35]
Legacy[edit]
Jacob's Ladder greatly inspired the horror franchise Silent Hill,[36] including the video games Silent Hill (1999),[37] Silent Hill 2 (2001),[38] Silent Hill 3 (2003),[39] Silent Hill 4: The Room (2004),[40] and Silent Hill: Homecoming (2007),[41] as well as the series' 2006 film adaptation by Christophe Gans.[42] The film's influence on their works was also recognized by Ryan Murphy, writer of the 2011 TV series American Horror Story: Asylum,[43] and by Shinji Mikami, creator of the Resident Evil series and director of the 2014 video game The Evil Within.[44] Kim Manners prepared for directing The X-Files episode "Grotesque" by listening to the music from Jacob's Ladder.[45] The music video for the 2010 song "Nightmare" by Avenged Sevenfold is an homage to the famous hospital scene from the film, chosen by the director Wayne Isham, because the band's deceased drummer The Rev was a fan of the film.[46]
Jacob's Ladder as a film is directly referred to in Silent Hill 2 and especially Silent Hill 3.[47] Other references to the film itself include the mentions in the 2002 The Twilight Zone episode "Night Route" (dialog[48]) and the 2010 The Simpsons episode "The Squirt and the Whale" (visual). Rick and Morty references the film in Season 4, Episode 6: "Never Ricking Morty" with a flashback when Morty stabs Rick with a bayonet, reminiscent of what happens to the main protagonist at the beginning of the film.[49]
In music, Claytown Troupe used a sample of Michael's quote 'It's a fast trip ... ' at the beginning of the track "Rainbow's Edge" from their 1991 album Out There. UNKLE sampled dialogue from the film in their 1998 "Rabbit in Your Headlights" and again in 2003 in "Inside". VNV Nation's track "Forsaken" from the 1998 album Praise the Fallen ends with the quotation from Eckhart. "Devils" from IVardensphere's 2011 album APOK begins with the same quotation. A sample of Jacob's cry 'Stop it, you're killing me!' is used in "Next in Line" from Nevermore's 1996 album The Politics of Ecstasy. Terminal Sect extensively sampled the film for their track "Where Angels Fall".
The film's possible influence can be arguably seen in many other works ranging from M. Night Shyamalan's 1999 hit psychological horror film The Sixth Sense[50] to Peter Arnett's controversial 1998 CNN report "Valley of Death" about the 1970 Operation Tailwind.[51] Jeff Millar of Houston Chronicle wrote that Giuseppe Tornatore's 1994 psychological thriller A Pure Formality uses the plot device of Jacob's Ladder mixed with several other sources.[52] According to Premiere, Massy Tadjedin's 2005 psychological thriller The Jacket "is a film for those who don't remember Jacob's Ladder, perhaps for someone like Jacob himself," as it "resembles Jacob's Ladder too much for its own good."[53]
Director Christopher Nolan has said that Jacob's Ladder, specifically its use of abstract imagery, was an influence on his 2023 film Oppenheimer.[54]