FilmSkool — a free film school
Jacob's Ladder
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.
1990 · Directed by Adrian Lyne · 113 min · Drama · Mystery · Horror · Screenplay in the scene database · 57 frames
Tagline
The most frightening thing about Jacob Singer's nightmare is that he isn't dreaming.
Plot
On October 6, 1971, American infantryman Jacob Singer is with the 1st Air Cavalry Division, deployed in a village in Vietnam's Mekong Delta, when his unit comes under attack. As many of Jacob's comrades are killed or wounded, others exhibit abnormal behavior with some suffering catatonia, convulsions, and seizures. Jacob flees into the jungle and is stabbed with a bayonet.
Jacob awakens on the New York City Subway and glimpses a tentacle protruding from a sleeping homeless person. When he finds the subway station exit locked, he crosses the tracks and is almost hit by a train. The year is 1975; Jacob is a postal worker and lives in a rundown apartment in Brooklyn with his girlfriend, Jezebel Pipkin. Jacob misses his old family and experiences visions of them, especially the youngest of his sons, Gabe, who had died in an accident before the war. Jacob is beset by disturbing experiences and apparitions, including glimpses of faceless vibrating figures, and narrowly escapes being run over by a pursuing car. He attempts to contact his regular doctor Carlson at the local VA hospital but is informed that there is no record of him ever being a patient there and that Dr. Carlson has died in a car explosion.
At a party thrown by friends, a psychic reads Jacob's palm and tells him that he is already dead, which Jacob dismisses as a joke. After declining to dance with her, he appears to witness an enormous creature dancing sexually with Jezebel before killing her; Jacob collapses. At home, Jacob experiences a dangerous fever, which Jezebel attempts to bring down with a painful ice bath. Jacob wakes up in another reality where he lives with his wife Sarah and sons, including Gabe. In Vietnam, a wounded Jacob is evacuated under fire in a helicopter, which is subsequently shot down.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Written by: Bruce Joel Rubin
- Cinematography: Jeffrey L. Kimball
- Edited by: Tom Rolf
- Music: Maurice Jarre
- Production design: Brian Morris
- Produced by: Alan Marshall, Bruce Joel Rubin
Cast
- Tim Robbins as Jacob
- Elizabeth Peña as Jezzie
- Danny Aiello as Louis
- Matt Craven as Michael
- Pruitt Taylor Vince as Paul
- Jason Alexander as Geary
- Patricia Kalember as Sarah
- Eriq La Salle as Frank
- Ving Rhames as George
- Brian Tarantina as Doug
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English
- Studios: Carolco Pictures
- Budget: $25,000,000
- Box office: $26,118,851
- Themes: vietnam veteran, new york city, post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd), experiment, nightmare, subway, 1970s, paranoia, hallucination, car bomb
Own the film
FilmSkool earns a small commission from qualifying Amazon purchases, at no cost to you.
More by Adrian Lyne
On this film
This is the plain index, shown because JavaScript is off. Every lesson here is a free video published by the channel credited on it and plays through that channel's own embed — FilmSkool hosts nothing.