L'Échelle de Jacob

Jacob's Ladder presents a fascinating concept with its exploration of psychological horror, but I found it to be a bit of a mixed experience. The film's strength lies in its atmospheric tension and unsettling visuals, which create a deeply eerie ambiance. Tim Robbins delivers a strong performance as Jacob, conveying his character's disorientation and fear with palpable intensity.

However, the film's plot is often confusing and difficult to follow, which made it challenging for me to fully grasp the narrative's intentions. The frequent shifts in reality and dream sequences, while innovative, can come off as disjointed and leave me feeling more perplexed than engaged. Additionally, the film's pacing feels uneven, with some scenes dragging on and others rushing through crucial developments.

In summary, Jacob's Ladder offers intriguing psychological horror and a compelling performance by Robbins but suffers from a confusing plot and inconsistent pacing that can detract from the overall experience.

This is easily one of Adrian Lyne's best films. Tim Robbins is excellent and the visual affects were just awesome. I saw this movie for the first time in the theatre and it blew me away. I've seen it many times after that, purely for the visuals that were done so well. The plot twists and turns as it spirals downward slowly revealing the truth and keeps you guessing all the way to the surprising ending. This is a dark, violent, beautiful movie that I recommend to all people who love horror, and just a smart story that will keep you in suspense until the very end.

I remember viewing this movie a couple years back and I did not get a lot out of it, I thought it was just too weird. In fact, I even wrote a review of the film on here. I'm glad I gave it another try because I really got a lot more out of it after the second viewing. Maybe it was because my expectations of the film were lower or I have matured in past few years. Anyway, this is a highly fascinating and entertaining thriller about a Vietnam veteran who always feels like there is somebody or something "out to get him". He feels this way because he keeps seeing strange images and many people in which he comes in contact with appear to have horns growing out of their heads and whatnot. Him and his war buddies believe that these strange occurrences are the result of something that happened during the war. The best element of this film is its atmosphere and paranormal feel which will really give you the creeps as well as have you guessing what the cause of the strange occurrences that are affecting Jacob really are. Well worth viewing, and if it doesn't grab you on the first viewing, don't hesitate to try it again, you may enjoy it more. 8/10.

New York postal worker Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins) has nightmarish hallucinations stemming from his horrific Vietnam War experience. His wife Jezzie (Elizabeth Peña) struggles to help him. He is also haunted by his first marriage to Sarah and his dead son Gabe (Macaulay Culkin). Louis (Danny Aiello) is a chiropractor whose adjustments unleashes a long paranoid demonic nightmare.

This is a great movie of a personal nightmare. It's a very good performance of a paranoid character from Tim Robbins. Some of the images are actually quite disturbing. It may be the first time that I noticed the shaking head effects. The long nightmare does meander a little. It's hard to expect hallucinations to drive a straight line to a destination. The final reveal is problematic and pulls the rug from the rest of the movie.

This is perhaps the most genuinely disturbing film I've ever seen. At the same time it is a deeply touching movie. It is not perfect, especially it at times struggles to get the balance between sheer horror-laced confusion and coherent story elements right to create a followable narrative. On the other hand that's part of its primordial effectiveness, but on the other hand this is a movie that can perhaps be fully appreciated only on a second viewing, knowing what kind of image the pieces are part of.

The visuals of Jacob's Ladder were quite unique when it was released; they have inspired so many things since from games to music videos that modern audiences may not even realize how unprecedentedly terrifying they were at the time. But they still remain truly disconcerting and haunting.

Tim Robbins is both perfectly cast and gives a performance of a lifetime in this. He's likable and relatable, which is crucial as the audience needs to root and really care for him to stay invested in his destiny through the at times incomprehensible events. And the way he portrays the fear and confusion of a man who finds reality unraveling is immensely believable and unpretentious.

I will not say one word about the plot. The less one knows of this movie before watching it, the better. But I warmly recommend this, particularly to anyone who likes horror movies, inexplicable mysteries, disquieting war movies, and/or David Lynch movies.