Jacob's Ladder (1990) on Netflix
Wounded in Vietnam, infantryman Jacob Singer wakes on a New York subway in 1975. A post office worker in Brooklyn, he lives with Jezebel and keeps seeing his dead son Gabe.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.4/10131,003 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes73%
Trailer
Plot summary
In the Mekong Delta on October 6, 1971, Jacob Singer's infantry unit is attacked; comrades are killed and wounded, and some survivors convulse. Jacob escapes into the jungle and takes a bayonet wound. He comes to on a New York City subway in 1975, where the exit is locked and a train nearly strikes him on the tracks. Jacob works at a post office and lives in Brooklyn with his girlfriend, Jezebel Pipkin. He misses his former family and has visions of them, above all of his youngest son, Gabe, who died before the war in an accident. Faceless figures appear to him, and a car chases him. He tries to reach his old doctor, Carlson, and the veterans hospital has no record of him as a patient.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Jacob's Ladder (1990)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film greatly inspired the Silent Hill horror franchise, including the 2006 film adaptation by Christophe Gans, and its influence was recognized by Ryan Murphy, writer of American Horror Story: Asylum, and by Shinji Mikami, creator of Resident Evil and director of The Evil Within.
- Director Christopher Nolan has said that Jacob's Ladder, specifically its use of abstract imagery, was an influence on his 2023 film Oppenheimer.
- The special effect sequences were filmed in camera without post-production effects: an actor was recorded shaking his head around at a low frame rate, which plays back as horrifically fast motion. Lyne said he was inspired by the art of the painter Francis Bacon.
- Tim Robbins and Elizabeth Peña were among the first to audition for Jacob Singer and Jezzie Pipkin, but Carolco Pictures demanded more established stars: Dustin Hoffman, Richard Gere and Al Pacino were considered for Jacob, and Andie MacDowell, Julia Roberts, Demi Moore and Madonna for Jezzie. Lyne cast Robbins and Peña anyway.
- The script attracted attention after American Film named it one of the top ten unproduced screenplays, and directors Michael Apted, Sidney Lumet and Ridley Scott all expressed an interest, but no major studio was ready to invest in Bruce Joel Rubin's "too metaphysical" stories as "Hollywood does not make ghost movies".
SPOILER
At the end of the film a message says the Pentagon denied that the Army tested BZ, a hallucinogen, on its soldiers during the Vietnam War. Lyne said part of the inspiration was Martin A. Lee's book Acid Dreams, but noted that nothing in the book suggests the drug was used on U.S. troops.- Test audiences found the first version of the film overwhelming, so about 20 minutes of disturbing scenes, mostly from the last third of the film, were removed, according to Lyne's audio commentary.
