I just revisited this for the first time in many years. I’d forgotten how creepy it is and while it’s not necessarily my favorite, it’s a good watch.
I think I understand most of what’s going on but I’m left with the same questions as the first time I saw it. No spoiler box because this is a pretty old film.
Is the whole experimental drug subplot just a product of his imagination? It seems like it is but then if so, was he really bayoneted by a member of his own group? For me, this aspect of the film is why it’s not higher on my list of favorites. There’s something half baked about it, like, are we meant to know / care if the govt. was drugging the soldiers? It would seem we have our hands full watching Jacob’s “life” unravel without that back story. On the other hand, if that part is true, it’s not really sufficiently explored which makes it seem tacked on.
Also, though I think I know the answer, he never actually had a relationship with Jezzie, correct?
Again, I think this movie is great in a lot of ways and the commentary track by Adrian Lyne is one of the better ones. I’d really like to hear other’s insights into this complex and visual mindfuck.
Admittedly, I haven’t seen this movie in a long time, but if I remember how I interpreted it…the drugging of the soldiers was real…and they all turned on each other. The movie is kind of like his life flashing before his eyes…while being influenced by the ladder drugs.
This is an old movie, but I will spoiler this just in case someone hasn’t seen it before and is inspired to check it out…
IIRC The end of the movie is back with the soldiers, and he is being air lifted out …and I was under the belief that is when he died.
I am expected to be corrected for poor memory. Or even worse interpretations.
US soldiers in Vietnam were exposed to a psychedelic drug. Some went crazy and the protagonist got bayoneted. He slipped in and out of consciousness on his way to the field hospital where he died.
Some of what happens outside his head influences the dream he’s having. For example, when the helicopter transporting him crashes, a car explodes in his dream. When he gets put on a stretcher in the hospital with the bloody body parts and the scary surgeons, that’s likely the result of being transported through the jungle on a stretcher and perhaps being attended to by a medic. The “light at the end of the tunnel” he last sees as he goes up the stairs with his son is the intense lamp over him in the field hospital.
The plot about the government using drugs on them isn’t much explored aside from the protagonist’s theories because he doesn’t really know what happened aside from having a hunch that his unit was exposed to the drug by the US gov’t.
What we see in his dream is a blend of him processing what’s happening to him, his fears, his traumas and regrets, being both severely injured and under the influence of a psychedelic. The dream he’s having is about coming to terms with his approaching death. The tagline of the movie is: “The most frightening thing about Jacob Singer’s nightmare is that he isn’t dreaming” with the “He’s dying.” left unsaid.
Apparently, the movie was too much for the audience in test screenings so about 20 minutes were cut. Here’s an example of what was cut: Scariest Jacob's Ladder Deleted Scene (1990) HD Movie - YouTube Watch it during lunch or in a dark room with headphones for extra appreciation : )
The movie’s writer must have taken too much LSD at some point and figured he could make an interesting screenplay out of his experience.
Thanks, Mmouse. That pretty much aligns with my thoughts. I guess I might have put too much importance on the govt. drug aspect. I’d say I need to watch it again but it’s not a film that’s really easy to watch.
By the way, this is the first instance that I can recall that freaky super fast head shake thing. Now it’s a bit overused but the first time I saw this, holy crap did it disturb me. Also, the scene that scared me the most out of the whole freaky thing is when Elizabeth Pena suddenly gets up in his face and yells “anybody in there?Anybody HOME”
I had forgotten about that part and it startled the hell out of me this last time around.
And thanks for the clip, Mr. beard. You can go ahead and pm me your phone number so I can call you in the middle of the night when I can’t go back to sleep :eek:
You likely did that because of the habit created by watching other movies. Most movies would have put a lot of importance on the govt drug aspect. The people who made Jacob’s Ladder conceived of it as psychological horror more than a political thriller.
It was reused in many other works, most notably the game Silent Hill. Here’s some commentary about the movie and what it inspired: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JltJ6Xoglo
Did you mean to refer to me or am I missing something?
Saw this movie in the theater when I was 16. Power went out with like 10 minutes left in the movie. Movie tripped me out so much didn’t bother to take the free passes to come back to watch the whole thing again.
Really confused me…and was blown away when I later found out the ending. Perhaps I would understand the movie a bit better now then when I was young and dumb.
No sorry, I was sarcastically giving thanks for the clip but addressed it to the wrong person. That is really oogie, though not that much more so than the rest of the oogie sights in the film.
So did his kid actually die? And he got to see him again in “heaven”? Or was his kid alive the whole time and his “dream” about having a dead kid was supposed to be symbolic of leaving him at home while in the war and then never getting to go back?
I always thought he was dead. Jeez, their reunion on the way to the afterlife is the only bright speck in the film. Please don’t take that away from me :o
Fantastic movie, one of my favorites. I see from Wikipedia that a remake’s in the works, which means yet another legacy tarnished. :smack:
One part that always bugged me was Jacob’s age. He’s married and has three kids, the oldest of which is around eight or so, and he joins the army after the youngest one dies. (Yes, the kid was really dead, Elizabeth Peña mentions him early in the film.) That would put Jacob in his late 20’s at the youngest, which seems way too old to enlist. Were they really taking people that old during Vietnam?
I’m not sure about Vietnam, but when I joined in 2001 the highest age you could enlist was 36, with waivers available if you were older but had been in the military before. I agree that being drafted at that age is unlikely. But I think simply enlisting is believable.
Yeah, but are we even sure she exists? As far as we know, she was just part of his dream while he died on a stretcher in Vietnam.
Anyway, the reunion in heaven certainly seems to clarify the situation. It’s been a long time since I saw the movie, I didn’t realize he had other kids. That makes it more likely that the particular one he dreams is dead actually is dead. If it was just the one kid, that makes it ambiguous as to whether his death was real or symbolic, but since there were others, It makes it clearer to me.
I thinkhe just incorporated Elizabeth Pena into his dying dream. He actually knew her from the post office and put her in his alternate reality in the role of his girlfriend(?)
If I think too hard about this movie and the supposed time line I can really confuse myself.
Did Jacob actually know Peña from before the war? The movie’s clear on that point; Jacob does say that he took a job at the post office because, “After the war, I didn’t want to think anymore.” I think Peña’s character was less a hallucination and more of a demon tempting him away from the light – her name’s “Jezebel”, fer chrissakes – just as Danny Aiello: Philosophical Chiropractor was an angel trying to guide him back on track.
I’ll have to watch the movie again to see if there’s something I missed, but this is the timeline as I understand it:
(1) Jacob Singer goes to college, earns a doctorate degree; along the way he gets married and has a bunch of kids.
(2) Macaulay Culkin becomes a bumper magnet.
(3) Jacob quits his job (whatever it was before the war), leaves his wife and goes to Vietnam, where he get bayoneted in the gut.
(4) [Hallucination Time] After Vietnam, Jacob works for the post office, meets his sexy co-worker and begins living in sin with her. Starts having all sorts of crazy visions & flashbacks, nearly dies a couple times, and finally takes a taxicab to his old house in Brooklyn where his dead kid’s waiting.
(5) [Back in reality] Jacob dies.
