Let’s Scare Jessica to Death: John D. Hancock

About a week ago, I found a Facebook app that was designed to test my knowledge and love of horror cinema by asking how many films I had seen on a list of what they called the 100 Greatest Horror Movies of All Time.  I'm no Cinema Snob, but I fancy myself as knowing a thing or two about the genre. So imagine my surprise when I learned that I had only seen 80/100 of the films that were listed! Even more bizarrely, many of the films that I had not seen I had also never heard of before. So, in order to defend my honor as a horror aficionado, I set out to track down the films that had escaped my knowledge for so long.  The first was John D. Hancock's low, low, low budget psychological thriller Let's Scare Jessica to Death.  The film's premise seemed interesting enough: a young woman named Jessica, her husband, and their friend move to a decrepit Victorian farmhouse in rural Connecticut.  Jessica had recently been released from a mental institution where she was treated for a severe nervous breakdown.  In accordance with horror movie law, it isn't long after the psychologically fragile woman moves to the old mansion/house/apartment/farm in the middle of nowhere that she begins to hallucinate. This is all precipitated when the trio first arrive at the farmhouse and discover that a hippie named Emily had been squatting there.  Then Jessica begins to hear voices, see dead bodies lying around, and believe that Emily and their neighbors are vampires and/or zombies and/or ghosts.  The specifics aren't important. All that matters is that Jessica begins to go crazy again and believe that everyone around her wants to die.  Oh, and of course, it's uncertain whether this is all real or just a hallucination by Jessica.  It doesn't really matter, though. Let's Scare Jessica to Death isn't very good. I understand that the film wasn't aiming for shock scares and instead focused on creating an atmosphere of terror and dread. But it doesn't do a very good job of that, either. The film is a strange curiosity, but not worthy of being on a list of the 100 Greatest Horror Movies of All Time...at least in my opinion.

4/10