Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971) on Netflix
GP19711h 29mDramaHorrorMystery
Released from a mental ward into her husband Duncan's care, Jessica wants her life back. She and Duncan and their friend Woody move into a farmhouse where a drifter, Emily, is living.
- Netflix2.9/5
- IMDb6.4/1010,576 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes30%
Trailer
Plot summary
Jessica has been discharged from a mental institution into the care of her husband, Duncan, and hopes to take up the life she led before her nervous breakdown. Duncan has left the New York Philharmonic, where he played string bass, and bought a rundown farmhouse outside the city. He, Jessica and their friend Woody arrive to find a drifter named Emily squatting in the home. Emily offers to move on, but Jessica asks her to stay for dinner and for the night. Noticing how drawn Woody is to Emily, Jessica urges Duncan to invite her to stay on. Then Jessica begins hearing voices, and sees a young blonde woman watching her from a distance.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Let's Scare Jessica to Death began as a satirical screenplay by Lee Kalcheim titled "It Drinks Hippie Blood", about hippies camping on a cove who are attacked by a creature living in the water. Director John Hancock reworked it into a serious horror film set at a remote farmhouse.
- John Hancock agreed to direct only if he could redraft the screenplay, and kept the mute girl played by Gretchen Corbett and a séance scene at the producers' request. Hancock said the scenes "didn't make much sense to me, but the Mosses felt they would be particularly enjoyable and scary."
- Zohra Lampert was cast as Jessica after being approached by director John Hancock, her former boyfriend, while she was performing on Broadway in Mother Courage and Her Children with Anne Bancroft. She said: "I accepted, trusting his judgment."
- Mariclare Costello was cast as the vampiric Emily because Hancock was taken by her bright red hair and pale complexion. Costello had previously worked as a casting director on Hancock's 1967 stage production The Freaking Out of Stephanie Blake.
- The film was shot in the fall, so the actors had to swim in very cold water for the lake scenes. Mariclare Costello's character comes out of the lake in a wedding dress, filmed in late November on a snowy day.
- Let's Scare Jessica to Death was among the first horror films to give a synthesizer a prominent place in its score, which Orville Stoeber composed. Mariclare Costello's recorded voice was kept for her character's song instead of a professional singer's.
- Paramount's marketing for the film included free passes for people who had recently donated blood to the American Red Cross, plastic vampire fangs at some cinemas, and a hearse parked outside Manhattan's Criterion Theatre. A $100 prize went to the hearse driver with the "best decorated" hearse.
