Review of Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971) by Justin A — 14 Oct 2015

I was originally going to give this a lower score because I found the direction to be drab and the movie kind of tedious. But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't enthralled and enjoying it throughout.

It held my attention despite being like flavorless oatmeal. It was really the characters that kept me entertained. The lead who plays Jessica is actually really good, and walks a fine line between hammy overacting and being a legitimately crazy woman.

She reaches that point where you're about to laugh at her acting, but then pulls it back slightly enough to make her character someone the audience can connect to. Like I said before, the direction is really dull.

But there are some pretty creepy moments, like the mute girl who seems to be following Jessica and the scene where someone comes out of the water. Though, those parts are creepier more for the context than because they're shot or edited to make you pee your pants.

The ending was interesting, but kind of confusing. I didn't quite understand what the antagonist was doing. Then it gets really reminiscent of Dead & Buried for a little bit before ending a bit anticlimactically.

I think you're supposed to come away wondering if Jessica was crazy or not, but I didn't really get that. The way the movie portrays it is Jessica is not crazy. It never seems like she's imagining things or jumping to conclusions, even if the voice overs try to make it seem that way.

This, again, is kind of a problem because of a director who seemed to be just following the script instead of adding artistic flare. Maybe I'm off base with my assessment, but this was just how my viewing went.

Anyway, I'd put Let's Scare Jessica to Death up there with the other movie I mentioned, Dead & Buried. It's not up there with the classics or even a movie you need to go out of your way to see, but once you start getting past the notable horror titles and into more unknown and forgotten movies, they're surprisingly entertaining.