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Jacob's Ladder

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Jacob's Ladder (1990)

November. 02,1990
|
7.4
|
R
| Drama Horror Mystery
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After returning home from the Vietnam War, veteran Jacob Singer struggles to maintain his sanity. Plagued by hallucinations and flashbacks, Singer rapidly falls apart as the world and people around him morph and twist into disturbing images. His girlfriend, Jezzie, and ex-wife, Sarah, try to help, but to little avail. Even Singer's chiropractor friend, Louis, fails to reach him as he descends into madness.

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LouHomey
1990/11/02

From my favorite movies..

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Lightdeossk
1990/11/03

Captivating movie !

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Derry Herrera
1990/11/04

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

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Matho
1990/11/05

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

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elizabethdawson-78805
1990/11/06

Jacob's Ladder has attained cult status and rightly so- this is a haunting psychological horror film with some surreal imagery and scenes which will make you distinctly squirm. Tim Robbins plays Vietnam vet who is suffering from perhaps post traumatic disorder or something else. He realizes that almost the entirety of his battalion is also going through something similar. He decides to make sense of this and get answers. As mentioned earlier the images are surreal and terrifying as is the slow descent into madness that we as audiences feel. The tone is suitably dreary with low lights, dripping rain and shadows. Go watch Jacob's Ladder to be creeped out.

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The Movie Diorama
1990/11/07

Another film that has garnered cult status over the years, more so for its unique nightmarish flashback narrative structure. I honestly had to sit in silence for a good ten minutes and attempt to string some words together to surmise this film. Simply put: "A confusing mystery of confusing confusion". *sigh*...I'm going to need my notebook next time. Jacob is wounded during the Vietnam war, years later he starts to see hallucinations and experience depressing flashbacks which leads him to investigate the sudden mental visions. I mean...how do I even collate adjectives and superlatives to create a review for this? It's so bizarrely executed that it left me questioning if this was a hidden masterpiece or just difficult for the sake of melting the brains of the audience. Currently, I sit in the middle. It's an intriguing perspective into a heightened mind during a visceral heart-pumping experience such as the Vietnam War, where secret experiments with hallucinogens were utilised as a means to increase aggression. That aside, the primary appeal to this thriller is the intricate narrative structure. Is it real? Fabricated? Nostalgic memories or malicious nightmares? The careful construct of the plot will leave you questioning every scene up until its conclusion (which still left me scratching my head occasionally). It's rapid pacing, consistently blending ghostly fantasies with reality, which certainly needs to be adjusted to. The constant transitions between flashbacks is jarring, particularly for the first half, but stick with it and all will be answered. Robbins gives yet another exceptional performance as a man undergoing psychological delusions. My main negative is the fact it was so...how to put it..."in your face", that actually I cannot remember the majority of scenes. It's like a jigsaw puzzle, you don't remember slotting each piece in but you do acknowledge the final product. Jacob's Ladder is just that, an absurdly hallucinogenic jigsaw puzzle that definitely needs to be revisited again.

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agustintomaslarghi
1990/11/08

This is the first review that I write on IMDb, just for the fact that this is a terribly underrated film, and I couldn't believe that this film scored just a 7.5/10 while films such as The Sixth Sense scored a 8.1/10Jacob's Ladder kept me at the edge of my seat all the time, not knowing what to expect next. This film embodies the core principles of the psychological thriller genre, you don't know if the protagonist is just suffering from PTSD, if is something going wrong for real, if his in hell or something like that, what is real and what is in his mind.The acting of Tim Robbins in this film is really outstanding, you can feel the fear and the pain of the protagonist through the film with each dialog, with each scene, you just want him to have some peace. The movie throws at you many symbolisms, making you guess what's going on.If you like the Silent Hill game sage (which is heavily influenced by this film) you're going to love this film.If you like psychological thrillers but you hate when the plot is really obvious or the plot twist is just a slap on your face, be sure that this isn't that kind of film.Not gonna lie you, the ending can make you feel a little empty, but if you're watching a psychological thriller you're not in for the happy ending.This film is twice as good when you watch it a second time, because you can tie all loose ends and all the symbolisms through the movie. Hope that you enjoy it as much as I did.

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tiskec
1990/11/09

This movie is outstanding. It's scary in your creepy, thriller, and psychosis kind of way. However, this movie is also scary in the fact that it reveals that government secrets do exist. They're not just a bunch of jive. In the movie, the main character Jacob is shown in early Vietnam, wounded and winding down to unconsciousness. He eventually wakes up in the "post Vietnam War," to find out his son and his family are okay. He lives a "normal" life as a mailman in New York City. Then, he starts getting these weird visuals, people with tails and foreign body structures. Eventually, they all turn into monsters. Then one day, he wakes up in a bed next to a woman he knew before he met his wife; he's all confused about this. He starts living in two alternate realities, with visions of occurrences that aren't quite clear, or that contain hellish creatures and settings. In one of his realities, he calls all of his Vietnam buddies to see if they're experiencing the same situations he's going through. Lone and behold, they're all experiencing "it." They all thought they would think each individual would think they were nuts if they admitted it, but they soon establish that they're not nuts among each other.Jacob soon finds out through his dream that a chemist had been experimenting with a new drug in order to make super soldiers out of the Army. The test was selected of a small platoon in the Vietnam jungle. It worked alright; so good that the whole platoon killed each other afterwords. it filled everyone with super human rage.You think all of this is fiction, but it's not. Everything that happened was of Jacob's self conscience, unwilling to let go of his family. He's actually dying in a Vietnam medical facility, pumped full of this drug. He is actually living in his self conscience. This movie is very creepy. There is a synopsis at the end that verifies the testing of this drug on Vietnam soldiers during the war. It also states that the Pentagon still tries to deny the authorization of this testing/strategy. The Pentagon doesn't want to take any responsibility (hmmm, sound like American politicians to me). I will let the viewer experience what happens in the end. I don't want to spoil too much. This movie is outstanding. At the end, I was just like...."wow." I would definitely recommend this movie to anyone.

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