“Jacob’s Ladder” (1990): A Hellish Hidden Gem of 90s Horror
This post contains disturbing imagery, frequent mentions of war, and a brief mention of suicide. Reader discretion is advised.
Every few years, a horror movie comes along and deeply cements itself into the mind of the public, even among non-horror fans. Whether it’s because the film features a new entry into the iconic horror villain canon, a campy premise, or is just plain controversial, it sinks its teeth in. Regardless of the reason, it’s always a huge win for the horror genre — one that’s largely unfortunately discounted both critically and generally due to its perceived lack of merit.
Skinamarink (2022) and similar arthouse, experimental ventures seem to be the hot topic right now, but previous horror movies of the moment include It (2017), Paranormal Activity (2007), and The Blair Witch Project (1999).
And then there are horror films that very much should be among the ones being discussed among the larger population, but for whatever reason, just aren’t. Whether it’s the case of a box office flop or it becoming lost in the overwhelming sea of shitty horror movies, the good ones just don’t end up getting the recognition they deserve.
Such is the case with 1990’s Jacob’s Ladder, a film I watched for the first time on a whim simply because it was available on Kanopy (a cool streaming service you can get access to for free through your local academic/public library). It just barely made back its $25 million budget at the box office, coming in at $26.1 million, but it’s deservedly gained a bit of a cult following in the 33 years since its November 1990 debut. Jacob’s Ladder is also featured at #144 on Letterboxd’s list of top 250 horror films — which I hope to one day watch every film on— so I knew it would certainly be solid.
Jacob’s Ladder, directed by Adriane Lyne, follows the titular character (Tim Robbins) as he returns home from the Vietnam War, still reeling from the animalistic violence he saw there and the death of his young son, Gabe (an uncredited Macaulay Culkin), that took place before his deployment. Jacob’s world begins to blur between nightmares and reality, and not even his new girlfriend, Jezzie (Elizabeth Peña), or his friend and long-time chiropractor, Louis (Danny Aiello) can help him as he descends the ladder into madness.
After my first watch late at night in January earlier this year, I was left in the darkened silence of my childhood bedroom with my eyes still wide (partially from what I’d just witnessed, partially from the edible I had taken before starting it). I was thoroughly disturbed, shocked, and intrigued. I thought about it the next day and the day after that. I watched every video essay and review on it I could find — which, unfortunately, there aren’t many of. Just like poor Jacob Singer, I descended the ladder and could not climb back up.
Jacob’s Ladder is not for everyone, though. Like a lot of horror, especially that of a psychological nature, you have to really be into and okay with the off-putting, hard-to-look at, and sometimes nonsensical.
Most of this movie takes place in the vulnerable space between dreams, nightmares, and reality, and although I watched it high off my ass, I’d venture to say that this movie could be very triggering for you if you’re someone susceptible to psychosis or dissociation.
Even the film’s poster is jarring, with the only thing visible through the sea of darkness being Jacob’s face, caught in a motion blur haze, his mouth agape.
I like to be perturbed and have that feeling stick with me — it’s the mark of a good horror movie for me. This one did its job and then some. It’s quickly become one of my new favorites, and it’s my honor to hopefully make more people aware of it.
This is one of those movies that I urge you to go into knowing as little as possible — hopefully, it will give you the same hellish, anxiety-inducing experience I had upon my first watch. I’ll try to spoil as little as I can, but do note that some specific scenes are described in detail. If you want to fully experience the head-spinning, early-90s mind game that is Jacob’s Ladder for yourself before you read this post, this is where you get off.
Stories involving Vietnam vets riddled with immense PTSD always get to me for some reason. I don’t know a Vietnam vet personally and I never have, but something about the immense suffering seen on both sides is haunting. I still think about the scene in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, having been assigned to read it in 11th grade, in which a vet ends his own life by hanging himself with a jump rope from the YMCA.
It’s no surprise, then, that Jacob’s Ladder is so effective as a piece of horror. One could even argue it’s somewhat of an anti-war film. Not nearly on the levels of the modern cinephile’s beloved Come and See (1985) or this year’s Oscar Best Picture-nominated All Quiet on the Western Front (2022), of course, but still a gripping portrait of how war leaves those who survive it — and how the country veterans chose to fight for so often fails them on an unfathomable level.
As Jacob tries to adjust to his new civilian life as a postal worker in New York, going about his day, things begin to shift — gradually, at first, then all at once.
He has flashbacks to his time in the war when his platoon was attacked under mysterious circumstances: the men are severely injured and begin to express odd behavior, seize, and fall catatonic. Jacob is stabbed in the stomach and is airlifted to safety.
Jacob wakes up on a train, unsure of his whereabouts. He asks another rider for help, only to be met with silence and an unnerving glare back in response. He sees strange faceless beings following him in cars that try to run him over.
Seeking help for his strange visions and hallucinations, Jacob goes to the local VA hospital only to find his doctor had died in a freak car explosion accident and they have no record of Jacob ever being a patient. Later, at a party with his girlfriend, Jezebel (someone who Jacob “sold his soul” for to get a “good lay”), a palm reader tells Jacob he is already dead.
Later, Jacob’s chiropractor, Louis, explains to Jacob that his demonic hallucinations are like “devils tearing [his] life away”, because Jacob is afraid of dying. If he’s made his peace with death, however, then they’re really “angels freeing [him] from the earth”.
Okay, yeah, this movie is only just a little heavy-handed with the religious allegories.
During the film’s climax, in perhaps its most well-known scene, Jacob is taken to a hospital from hell after becoming paralyzed while on the run from men who are seemingly out to get him. This sequence relies heavily on a subgenre of horror known as body horror, which TV Tropes defines as “any form of horror […] involving body parts, parasitism, disfigurement, mutation, or unsettling bodily configuration, not induced by immediate violence”.
Jacob is wheeled on a gurney through dilapidated hallways by uncaring doctors who insist they’re “doing everything they can” upon him asking for his chiropractor. A little girl is curled in the fetal position on the floor, with no one seeming to acknowledge her. The wheels of the gurney spin out of control as it wheels on down the halls. Other patients in the hospital seem to be in extreme mental distress, one banging his head against the glass partition which is covered in blood.
Above him, patients with no or disfigured limbs roll about on the metal grating, confined to strait jackets. Mangled, bloodied body parts are strewn about in piles on the floor and the gurney runs right over them. A hooded man with no legs shakes his head violently at an unnatural, inhuman speed.
When Jacob is finally taken into the operating room, a man with no eyes and skin in place of where his eye sockets should be gives him a painful injection right in the forehead.
It is all expertly, horrifically done. I don’t think I’ll have the honor of experiencing such an unsettling four-minute sequence like it any time soon. As a horror fan, not much gets to me. I’m not particularly squeamish and I can handle most simulated gore. Body horror, however, freaks me the fuck out.
I think that’s mainly because it hinges on the primal human fear laying deep within us all that tells us that people who don’t look like us, anatomically, are some kind of a threat. Ever hear of the uncanny valley? It’s like that. There’s something just a little… off. And you can’t quite place it.
As much as I love to be scared by body horror, I do think it’s important to recognize that the entire concept, as it’s used in Jacob’s Ladder, is predicated on some potentially harmful, outdated, and problematic ideas: that being that disabled or disfigured people are inherently scary or disturbing to look at.
In fact, the film’s famous head shake shot (which in turn went on to inspire the head-twitching enemies of the Silent Hill video game franchise) was directly inspired by Joel-Peter Witkin’s 1976 photo entitled “Man With No Legs”.
I don’t know the backstory of this photo. I don’t know Witkin’s artistic intentions with this photo. Is the man’s disability meant to shock? It seems Adriane Lyne, Jacob’s Ladder director, took it as such.
Of course, any well-meaning adult with critical thinking skills knows (or should know, at the very least) that disabled people or those with disfigurements or limb differences are not inherently scary, bad, demonic, or pose any threat at all to society. They are just people. To think anything differently borders on eugenics.
But using disabled people for shock value or horror in this way does contribute to that stigma, whether intentional or not. Have you ever had to tell a child not to stare at someone in a wheelchair? Apart from being naturally curious, of course, kids probably don’t have the positive exposure to physically disabled people they need to have in order to keep them from staring.
I’m not insinuating little kids are watching Jacob’s Ladder, obviously. But people do subtly relay their opinions and thoughts on subgroups of marginalized people — which oftentimes, they’ve only had experiences with through media — to others through their behavior. If an adult is uncomfortable with disability, the people around them who don’t know any better will be too.
Is body horror ethical? Is it morally acceptable? I don’t have the answer and I don’t think any horror filmmakers do either. It’s a very thin line to walk. You could say the same about any mental health condition that’s demonized in horror for story purposes. Is that practice ethical, or is it now forever fused with the horror genre?
And I won’t lie, that eyeless doctor scared the bejeezus out of me the first time I saw him. Am I complicit in the oppression of someone who may actually look like that? Maybe! Have I contributed to this very problem by warning you about the “disturbing imagery” in this post at the beginning? Did I completely make this “problem” up in my little woke leftist mind? All great questions!
Speaking as someone with a somewhat noticeable physical disability that’s resulted in the occasional stare or out-of-pocket comment, maybe that’s why body horror unnerves me so much: I am the body horror.
I’ll continue to enjoy body horror while being mindful of what it perpetuates, and I’d implore you to do the same.
Aside from the body horror, Jacob’s Ladder is an atmospheric knockout: The 90s camera quality that gives off an eerie vibe of isolation. The inter-spliced first-person scenes of the violence war. The shifts in reality Jacob experiences that keep you guessing with every scene. The palpable grief you feel when Jacob thinks about his family he left behind. His disconcerting visions you can’t bare to look away from. Did that faceless person in the car mean something? What about the tentacles that snake their way up Jezzie’s legs during that sweaty dance scene? No, they didn’t mean anything at all.
And oh, that ending.
It’s all part of the nightmare. The ladder.
Does it go upwards, towards heaven, or downwards, towards hell?
You decide.
This is the final post in my series of film-related content in honor of the 2023 Oscars — feel free to check out my thoughts on 2023’s Knock at the Cabin or the tour of my insane Letterboxd profile if you’re so inclined! Thanks for coming along with me throughout this month, film lovers. It means a lot. Happy Oscars!
Reminder that you can follow me for free with your Medium account to support me and read my new articles right when they come out.
