Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

A recently institutionalized woman (Zohra Lampert) has bizarre experiences after moving into a supposedly haunted country farmhouse and fears she may be losing her sanity once again.In 2006, the Chicago Film Critics Association pronounced "Let's Scare Jessica to Death" the 87th scariest film ever made. In the 2010s, Time Out conducted a poll with several authors, directors, actors and critics who have worked within the horror genre to vote for their top horror films. "Jessica" placed at number 86 on their top 100 list. And in 2016, Rue Morgue magazine gave the film a cover story with in-depth coverage from Kim Newman and an extensive interview with director John Hancock.This being said, I figure it was high time I saw it for myself. And it really is a great film. Some aspects really suggest a late 60s or early 70s aesthetic (the impromptu jam session in particular) but this does not hurt the aging of the film in any way. In fact, it sort of helps put it in an older time, as there is something about the setting that suggests an era even earlier then the time of filming.The scares are achieved by a slower building of tension and an atmosphere of dread. We don't have a lot of blood and guts (though there is some), and the scares aren't generally cheap "jump" or "bus" scares.Does a good version exist? The one I saw was good, but a bit rough. Warner Archive does not seem to put in much effort to clean up their films.

This is a film that works best by at first creeping up on you and then grabbing you on the spine. Nothing is what it seems here as the central character has recently been released from a mental institute and is unsure of whether the events she believes are happening are real, or in fact a figment of her imagination. By developing a tense atmosphere and building up a lot of suspense, this film is a rarity that really does manage to provoke chills.While watching, it's hard to ignore the '70s fashions and the whole dated, arty, hippy mentality. However, if you do manage to overcome these obstacles then you're in for a darned good film. The acting is amateurish and yet suited to the piece; who better to portray normal people than, well, people off the street? The female lead is absolutely wonderful, playing a mentally unstable woman who is the heroine of the film, and who everybody else believes is crazy in any case.Towards the end of the film, things really begin to gel together as the chills become more focused. In one spellbinding, transfixing scene a pale figure rises out of a lake, a haunting apparition. The townsfolk are clearly involved in some huge conspiracy, leading to lots of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS-style paranoia. A clear reminder that violence and gore are not necessary for a horror film to scare, this underrated classic is highly unsettling.

It is so heartening to come here and see all the fantastic reviews for a film I have been talking about my whole life. I was shocked to come to it again as an adult and nothing had faded for me- the atmosphere, that sense of disquiet, all were completely intact. It is not a perfect film, but coming upon this in your normal diet of bad slasher films, it shines as if it were "Citizen Kane". In fact, I would say that "Jessica" deserves to be known as the "Citizen Kane" of B-grade horror films- and I only call it B grade as a knee-jerk reaction to its lack of cult status. It truly deserves at least an A-. Zohra Lampert in particular blows you away by her complex depiction- she makes everyone around her a little more wooden in comparison. See it- own it- spread the word.

The lurid title could easily side-track you from what is essentially an extremely frightening exploration of a woman's descent into madness. You can read it, of course, in a material sense as the title suggests; but everything in this film has the potential to signify something else entirely, and its this ambiguity that makes this film so macabre and interesting. Everything, from the killing of the 'mole' to the conclusion where Jessica is trapped in the middle of a lake on a barely floating boat, could be signifying or at least implying something else. Classic metaphors for the human consciousness are bodies of water; being trapped in one or drowning metaphors for madness. The films ambivalent set of monsters, from a strange set of undead elderly villagers to sexually promiscuous vampires, threaten Jessica and her sanity. The fact that there is no ultimate explanation for the strange set of phenomena that take place is also demonstrative of the horrific and inexplicable quality of psychotic behaviour for those suffering from schizophrenia (for those of us that have had the misfortune to experience it) or the side-effects of drugs. This film is really worth seeing