Let’s Scare Jessica to Death

USA, 1971, 35mm, 1.85, colour, 89′
14.4. | 22:15 | Slovenian Cinematheque

directed by John D. Hancock written by John D. Hancock, Lee Kalcheim cinematography Robert M. Baldwin music Orville Stoeber editing Murray Solomon cast Zohra Lampert, Barton Heyman, Kevin O’Connor, Gretchen Corbett, Mariclare Costello

SOMETHING IS AFTER JESSICA. SOMETHING VERY COLD, VERY WET… AND VERY DEAD…

To recover from a recent nervous breakdown, Jessica (Zohra Lampert) moves to a secluded farm in rural Connecticut with her husband and their close friend. But the suspicious townsfolk don’t welcome our trio of New York “hippies” with open arms, and a mysterious young woman, Emily, has settled into the Bishop family’s abandoned farm. While both men are immediately taken with Emily, the mentally fragile Jessica starts to discover that something is not quite right in this quaint little town.

Hancock’s eerie, at once supernatural and psychological chiller doesn’t rely for its effect on bloody gore and jump scare tactics, but slowly builds its thick tension and sinister forebodings. Although the film has long enjoyed a cult following, its masterful moderation has surely cost it a more widespread popularity. But what is more pleasurable than (re)discovering hidden gems?

“John Hancock’s elegiac ghost story Let’s Scare Jessica to Death has wallowed in cult respectability for more than 40 years. Distinguished by its ambiguity and restraint (indeed the most lurid aspect of this movie is the title), it is nothing short of a masterpiece. … Often read as a funeral poem to the aspirations of the Love Generation, Jessica is also a powerful examination of a decaying sanity (is the haunting real or all in its main character’s mind?). Lampert’s extraordinary, wounded performance conveys more than enough pain and confusion, but Hancock cannily makes use of whispering voices on the soundtrack to further illustrate her rapidly deteriorating psyche. The temptation to pepper this film with more obvious shocks must have been strong, but Hancock’s delicate evocations of rural Connecticut take on an ominous quality of their own as lakes and orchards are spread with shadows. As Jessica’s hallucinations consume her reality, Hancock delivers one of cinema’s all-time pants-wetting scary moments …”
– Michael Doyle, Rue Morgue’s 200 Alternative Horror Films You Need To See