Movies
[Remember This?] The Sexy, Yet Terrifying Party Sequence in ‘Jacob’s Ladder’
With talks of a remake to Jacob’s Ladder heating up once again (story here), I turned to my old DVD collection to rekindle my love for the 1990 Adrian Lyne-directed thriller.
I probably haven’t seen the film in at least 15 years, so it was interesting to see my new adult interpretation come into fruition – not to mention my crafted critical eye-catching some absolutely stunning film work that I would have never appreciated in my teens.
Below is a scene from the film where Jacob, played by Tim Robbins, is hallucinating at a party. In the moment, Lyne created an absolutely stunning sequence where a beautiful Elizabeth Peña (playing Jezzie) gets her freak on with a winged demon right before Jacob’s eyes. It’s very Lovecraftian and also reminds me of films like John Carpenter‘s In the Mouth of Madness.
I’m pretty excited to remind some of you of this scene, while also introducing it to our younger readers. Take it in…
Before updating the video nasty Faces of Death, director Daniel Goldhaber and writer Isa Mazzei explored the dangers of online life in tech-thriller Cam, their feature debut that was acquired by Netflix in 2018 after making waves on the festival circuit.
At the end of last year, the Netflix exclusive quietly departed from the streaming platform, left without another streaming home.
It’s not an isolated story; Mike Flanagan’s Hush also left streaming entirely for a period until it was finally picked up on both physical media and other streaming services.
While the tech-thriller currently isn’t available to watch on Netflix, Tubi, Hulu, or any other platforms, that’s not a problem for Cam thanks to a very cool move by Goldhaber: the director has made his breakout film accessible to watch online for free via his website.
As his site notes: “CAM is unfortunately not currently available to view on any platforms, so you can watch it here if you like :).“
No subscriptions or fees necessary, just hit play.
Cam follows Alice (Madeline Brewer), who works as an online cam girl obsessed with her ranking on the cam site. The higher her ranking goes, the more it draws unwanted attention, and Alice soon finds herself replaced on her own show with a doppelganger.
Written by Mazzei, a former camgirl, it uses the horror thriller premise to examine the life of a sex worker; Alice’s career ambition is directly at odds with the shame it brings to her family, and how she tries to spare them from it by keeping them in the dark. It only compounds her danger when the doppelganger enters the equation in Goldhaber’s engaging thriller.
For a deep dive into the treacherous world of Cam, listen to Horror Queers’ episode on it now.
You must be logged in to post a comment.