This is a Film with a twist ending. I knew the twist ending ahead of time because I had seen it on a Watch Mojo list (great Youtube channel. You should check it out). But I get the feeling that even if I had not known how the film ended ahead of time, I still would have been smacked in the face with the correct guess. 

Now, that is not to say that Jacob's Ladder is a bad movie. There were definitely moments when I was afflicted with sudden cases of panic. When I sympathized with the lead character's feelings of entrapment. That came from a few eerie sequences, some great acting from Tim Robbins and his army-buddies, and some solid direction.

Jacob’s Ladder centers around Jacob, played by Tim Robbins. His character has been established as a Vietnam War veteran. After a fairly gruesome battle scene, the audience flashes onto a New York subway train with a sleeping Jacob. From then on, the timeline becomes jumbled, and as we follow Jacob throughout the film, we don’t know if he is mentally ill or if he is haunted by Demons. And if he is haunted by demons, are those demons symbolic of his past in Vietnam? Or has Vietnam even happened yet? The confusion works to the film’s advantage, never being hard to follow but difficult to piece together.

            Personally, I saw this film as a symbolic representation of the trauma or guilt that a Military Veteran must come to terms with when he is discharged. I don’t mean to presume that I know precisely what a military veteran goes through when he or she returns home; all I know of that is what I have read in books, two of which were autobiographies (American Sniper and Jarhead if you must know). But based on those books and what I have picked up over the years from meeting and reading about Vietnam veterans, Jacob’s Ladder seems to be an accurate visual representation. Demons are chasing our hero, and he cannot talk about them except to an exceptionally understanding doctor. He is trying to piece together why he is suffering how he is, and stuck. He is trapped in a Hell of his mind’s own making, and it suffocates him.

This film has more ties to a drama than it does to a horror thriller, but it still has a submissive tension that might leave its audience a tiny bit sick. Emphasis on “tiny”. There is nothing in here that will force people to metaphorically run out of the theatre. I doubt that anyone had to watch this through their fingers. If you liked Oculus or The Haunting (1963 version), then you might find a gem with this film. It’s no classic, but if any filmmakers got inspired by this film, I have no qualms seeing the reasons.