Bounding Into Halloween Night 25 Climbs ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ To Reach High ‘Society’
Good evening! I hope you’re ready for a double shot of distilled fear that affect both the mind and the body. One is a psychological horror that flirts with the supernatural, and the other is a body horror classic.
What do they have in common, you ask? They’re both tales of surreal mayhem that have their protagonists questioning their very sanity, and they’re also tonight’s movies! Let’s get weird…
Jacob’s Ladder (1990)
Up first is a true cult classic, and a complete mind-frak. This movie is responsible for the trauma of many 90s kids who caught it on cable one night, and it’s very likely that those boomers still remember its name to this day, even if they only watched it one time.
Director Adrian Lyne (Flashdance, Fatal Attraction, Indecent Proposal) stepped out of his wheelhouse of sexually-charged films to create a nightmare that blurs the line between reality and delirium. An ascent into Heaven or a climb down into Hell? Those are the only choices when you’re on Jacob’s Ladder.
Tim Robbins gives an excellent performance as a haunted New Yorker, Jacob Singer. He’s a Vietnam vet with a broken heart, a fractured life, and an unraveling mind that’s plagued with horrific trauma. After years in med school, he goes to Nam, but not before his son (Macaulay Culkin) dies in an accident.
Then during the war, his entire platoon has a bad episode of hallucinations, or violent convulsing. He even ends up getting stabbed by an unseen enemy’s bayonet and survives (it seems) to get discharged, and divorced from his wife (Patricia Kalember). Following this, he decides to go work for the post office.
After his time in Vietnam, the last job Jacob wants is one that makes him think. He ends up hooking up with his co-worker, Jezebel (Elizabeth Peña), and moves in with her. Let’s just say that the healthiness of their relationship is a dubious proposition, at best.
Living with a combat veteran who’s prone to flashbacks is not a walk in the park, but she doesn’t do herself favors by treating him like crap. This gets worse when Jacob starts seeing tentacled creatures on the train, teeth sticking out of the top of nurse’s skulls, and spiky monsters getting extra freaky on the dance floor.
Everywhere he looks, there’s a blurry-faced apparition tormenting him. Then people around him start dying. His doctor dies in a car explosion, followed by one of his surviving platoon members. That’s when he convenes with the rest of the squad, and finds out that they’ve been experiencing the same visions.
Their incinerated comrade had apparently come to them saying that demons were coming to take him to Hell, but then an Army chemist (Matt Craven) appears, and tells Jacob that were part of an unbegotten military experiment. Were they, or is he just another demonic hallucination?
Once again, we have a movie that requires too much explanation that would unfortunately start giving away too much, and I refuse to do that to anyone who hasn’t seen it. The only thing I’m going to spoil is that you’re not going to feel great after taking this trip, but it’s still one helluva ride. Take a climb up Jacob’s Ladder on Prime.
Here’s the trailer:
I certainly hope you weren’t looking for a palette-cleanser after the last movie. This next movie is going to dump a mountain of gross onto your unnerved souls.
Society (1989)
It’s a body horror landmark, and the directorial debut of splatter expert, Brian Yuzna (Bride of Re-Animator, The Guyver, The Dentist). His film is simultaneously one of the most ridiculous movies ever made, and also one of the greatest trolls against California residents…
Because we most certainly do live in a “Society.”
Bill Whitney (Billy Warlock) is a troubled teen from Beverly Hills who’s having an issue fitting in with his rich family. It’s not just about the tennis matches, polo shirts, or fake smiles either.
He doesn’t feel like he’s on the same wavelength with them, and that they’re completely different species from him (hehehe). The black sheep doesn’t trust his sparking white family, and even less when his sister’s ex-boyfriend, Blanchard (Tim Bartell), gives him a tape with what sounds like the Whitney clan partaking in some kind of blood orgy.
Then he sees Blanchard’s van crashed with a bunch of cops around it. The paramedics roll out a covered body, but there’s evidence that shows it might be a fake.
Bill starts to investigate his family, and things just get weirder. All leading up to one of the oddest endings to a movie, and the introduction of the glorious “shunting” that will sear itself into your mind for all time.
Aside from being disgusting, strange, and kinda dumb, it’s also very original. Yuzna said that the shunt scene came from a bad dream he had, and that’s what the whole movie feels like. It’s hazy, incoherent, and ludicrous, but your flesh is crawling by the climax, or you at least hope that’s your flesh.
See the shunting on fuboTV, and consider yourself warned, but feel free to sample the trailer:
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