Let’s Scare Jessica to Death
(1971) 89 min.
Rated: PG-13
Country: USA
Director: John D. Hancock
Stars: Zohra Lampert, Barton Heyman, Kevin O’Connor, Mariclare Costello
Links: IMDB | Wikipedia
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Jessica, newly released from a mental facility, is not entirely if the threats she endures are imagined or real.
Synopsis:
From a rowboat in a calm lake, Jessica wonders about about what she experienced. This triggers a flashback.
Jessica (Lampert) has just been released from a few month’s stay in a mental institution. Her husband Duncan (Heyman) and their friend Woody (O’Connor) have all traveled from New York to live in a small town. Duncan has given up his job in the New York Philharmonic and put all his savings into this house with an apple orchard. The house is located on a small island known as the “old Bishop place”.
As they arrive at the old house they seem to find someone already inside. A pale red-headed woman named Emily (Costello) has been living there for some time. She starts to pack up her belongings to leave, but Jessica decides to invite her to stay over night and have dinner with them.
After dinner, Emily plays on her lute and sings, while Duncan pulls out his cello and plays along with her. Then later she asks if they want to do a seance and so she asks Jessica to call on the spirits of the house. She does so and hears her own thoughts as well as some sounds like past spirits, but no one else hears them and the seance is done.
The next day, Jessica and the others swim in the cove by the house and Jessica feels something pull her leg in the water. She’s frightened but neither Woody nor Duncan believe that anything is in the water.
Later, they pack up old items from the house to sell to an antique dealer. Jessica finds an old portrait of the Bishop family and packs it along with the other things to sell. Woody is obviously fond of Emily so Jessica and Duncan invite Emily to stay on for longer. Emily happily accepts.
Jessica and Duncan travel to town to find an antique dealer. The towns people are hostile. They’re all old men with bandages on their bodies and none of them are willing to help Duncan and Jessica. Finally, though, they are able to locate an antique dealer.
Sam Dorker is the local antique dealer and he gives Duncan and Jessica a warm welcome. As he sees what they have to sell, he relates to them the story of how twenty year old Abigail Bishop drowned in the cove before her wedding day. That the locals were unable to find the body and some even say she roams around as a vampire. Jessica and Duncan leave the dealer as he closes up shop to go fishing.
Jessica decides to do some grave rubbings and just as she’s about to do one of Abigail Bishops tombstone she sees a mysterious girl in white. She follows the girl who somehow vanishes. She then walks a bit further and sees the dead body of Sam Dorker. She screams and finds Duncan. When they return to the site the body is gone, but Jessica sees the girl and so does Duncan.
They run after the girl and capture her, but it seems she cannot speak. Jessica is adamant that the girl lead her to the body but the girl shakes her head “no”. As soon as Emily approaches, the girl runs away in fear.
At dinner that evening Jessica feels more and more as though no one believes her and she sees Emily holding onto Duncan’s hand and his growing interest in Emily. Jessica decides to go to bed early and Duncan reluctantly follows after her when Woody tells him to “take care of your wife”.
Once in bed Duncan tells Jessica she should go see a doctor in New York, though Jessica does not feel the need to. Instead she says they should sleep apart that night. Duncan decides to leave her the bed and he goes downstairs to sleep. However, Emily finds him downstairs and they begin to make love.
The next day Jessica is more shook up about the situation happening the house after finding a mole that was kept in a jar stabbed to death in the kitchen. Duncan decides to leave the house and head into town to find a phone to call for a doctor fearing Jessica has relapsed. Woody has gone off to spray the orchard with pesticides. Jessica goes into the attic and finds the portrait back in it’s original spot. Emily comes up behind her and Jessica remarks how similar Emily and Abigail Bishop look.
Emily tells her they should go out for a swim in the open air and get out of the house. Jessica reluctantly agrees to join her at the cove but not to swim. As they sit on the pier, Emily rubs oil onto Jessica’s back and then pushes her into the water. Emily apologizes, but frightened Jessica sees a pale arm reaching for her and pulling her in the water. She fights her way out, turns around and hears Emily’s voice in her head telling her no one is there. She looks around and sees no one there. And slowly out of the water Emily rises in the white gown.
Seeing this, Jessica runs all the way to the house and locks herself up in the bedroom. She changes clothes and feels more and more unsafe as Emily’s voice in her head tells her that she’s already with her, in her blood. Jessica decides to make a dash for it and flags down a truck to take her into town.
Meanwhile, Woody finishes spraying and goes into the house. He finds Emily in a white dress greeting him. He wonders where everyone else is and she tells him that Jessica ran off to find her husband in town. Woody is reluctant to be warm to Emily since she obviously has been close to Duncan, but she asks him to show her that he likes her. They begin to make love and she bites his neck.
As Jessica arrives in town she can’t find Duncan and she notices that all of the men have scars on their body. Growing increasingly frantic she runs off into the woods and faints. She stays there until night when she hears Duncan looking for her. She runs to him and they drive off towards home.
The house is dark and the lights don’t work. They get ready for bed and start to kiss. As they do, Jessica notices that Duncan, too, has a scar on his neck, though she pretends she does not see it, fearing that she is only making it up in her mind. Soon Emily appears in the room with a knife and is about to cut her and drink her blood. The room is filled with all the old men of the town and Jessica suddenly runs out of the room in a fright.
The cello case in the house now holds the dead body of the mute girl. Jessica also tries to flag down Woody on the truck spraying the orchard only to find him dead. She tries to run to the island ferry, but the ferryman won’t allow her to board and Jessica sees that he too has a scar.
Finally she finds a row boat and pushes it off the shore and begins to row as the sun comes up. A hand tries to grab the side of her boat but she grabs a hook in the boat and stabs the person repeatedly. It is Duncan and his dead body floats in the water. On the island shoreline she can see Emily/Abigail and the townspeople standing and watching.
The boat finally drifts to the opposite shore and Jessica wonders if it was all a nightmare, but knows that it has to be real. The film ends.
Review:
Though obviously low budget, there’s a certain quality to this film that makes it worth seeing.
There is the dramatic and deliberate pacing. Slowly the tension builds, the voices in Jessica head clue us to her thoughts and also off Emily’s thoughts. And perhaps in the end we are not even sure whether or not this was all a dream. Maybe Jessica killed a harmless Duncan. Perhaps no one at all was harmed and it’s just a dream. It could even be that Abigail/Emily is really a spirit controlling the townsfolk. We never know for sure and that is exactly what makes this film fun.
The music used in the film is simple. A soothing piano or lute played during calm scenes and a steady drum beat to replicate the increasing paranoia and anxiety of another scene. These are all played very well.
There are flaws, like obvious crew and equipment sightings, but the film never let’s go of its core feeling of increasing tenseness. It genuinely feels creepy at times for a film that is so 70’s.