A psychological horror film that walks a thin line between reality and insanity but slowly descends into madness and deadly reality.

• Scare factor: ★★★☆☆
• Psychological factor: ★★★★★
• Supernatural occurrences: ★★★★☆
• Folk horror vibe: ★★★☆☆

Let’s Scare Jessica to Death is a psychological horror film that blends the lines between reality and fiction and set Jessica on a course of self-doubt and paranoia. With supernatural elements and the rural isolation and a bit of a folk horror vibe, the descent into madness only gets worse when nobody wants to believe her. It stars Zohra Lampert, Barton Heyman, Kevin O’Connor and Mariclare Costello and was directed by John D. Hancock.

Duration: 99 minutes. 

Plot

Jessica just got back from being cured from a mental breakdown. After her father died she thought she saw and heard him. Her husband Duncan has bought a farm in the countryside to move away from New York and start fresh. They bring their friend Woody along to help them with the orchard. Along the way the little town is full of older men who all have bandages somewhere on their body and they all act very strange and hostile. 

When they get there they find a woman living in their house, Emily. She stays the night and they all have fun, so Jessica decides she can stay longer, because Emily has nowhere to go. 

But then the hallucinations and whisperings of a woman start. She whispers to Jessica things that make her doubt herself, that make her feel anxious and paranoid again. She even thinks she saw a dead body and a body of a drowned woman in the lake and strange things happen around the house. A house that has a history. The daughter supposedly drowned but the legend says she’s still alive and a vampire. 

Duncan is worried about her but doesn’t believe her. Meanwhile both Woody and Duncan fall for Emily. That leaves Jessica even more alone and isolated. Is she really going crazy again or is what she sees and hears real and are they all in danger?

Continue reading below this announcement.

Short Review

The film is a slow burn where we get inside Jessica’s mind. With a small cast and a primary setting the focus can be really on Jessica and her experiences. She knows her mental health is better now but she’s afraid she can have a relapse anytime. The film is all about Jessica, we follow her and her struggles with mental illness and paranoia. We even hear the whispering voice that speaks to Jessica and talks down to her. It remains ambiguous if that’s her inner voice or if that’s the voice of Emily who clearly has a plan of her own.

It’s about how vulnerable a woman can be, especially when she suffers from mental illness and isn’t believed even if she’s right. She is being gaslighted even by the people who are closest to her. Although Duncan and Woody don’t mean her harm, they undermine her self actualization. 

The setting, an isolated farmhouse with a history in a small town is a typical 1970s theme, when people went away from the big cities and moved to the countryside for more peace and quiet. A welcoming theme for horror because there’s something very wrong with the townspeople, who are all men. Men with bandages and scars. They give off a vibe of folk horror. Everything that happens screams that something is very wrong and that Jessica won’t stand a chance.

The farmhouse itself has a history of death and the townspeople are superstitious about it. The daughter drowned in the lake near the farmhouse but her body was never found. Some say she never died but became a vampire and is still there. This supernatural element surfaces at some points but only reveal themselves to Jessica. Although it plays at the background it does have a big part in the story. 

The atmosphere is that of some kind of dread, of an ominous vibe that can turn deadly anytime. The focus however is on psychological horror and even the ending can make you question if it all really happened. But we must not gaslight Jessica ourselves and believe her when she says she can’t believe it herself but it really did happen. It’s how the film starts and ends. She believes in herself and by accepting the impossible she accepted her own sanity. 

Let’s Scare Jessica to Death is an intriguing film about mental illness and female vulnerability in a man’s world.