Why JACOB'S LADDER Nearly Broke Me

Jacob's Ladder is a 1990 American psychological horror film directed by Adrian Lyne, starring Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Peña, and Danny Aiello. In the film, Jacob Singer's experiences before and during his service in Vietnam result in strange, fragmentary visions and bizarre hallucinations that continue to haunt him. As his ordeal worsens, Jacob desperately attempts to figure out the truth.

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[RegalFrog]

If the film was called Dante's inferno, then it would make much more sense if it followed Jacob, as you suggested, having his earthly sins burnt away as he travels through different layers of hell, possibly represented by people in his life/hallucinations. The reason I say this is that Inferno is only part one of three in the divine comedy and entirely focusses on hell, while part 2 focusses on purgatory.

[LauraTeKiwiBirb]

*Fun fact:* This was one of the films that inspired the original silent hill series. This film was a favorite of Akihiro Imamura.

[dr.truthteller]

I love how Jacob pops in and out of death throughout the film. The viewer thinks he's having war flashbacks when he's actually back to life.

[Dad_Brad]

Jacob wasn’t the only man killed in the unit. I think all of the men he met from his old unit were also dying and struggling to hang on. Somehow they just happened to bump into each other on their journey to the afterlife.

[nunyabizness]

I saw this movie for the first time when I was about 12 years old... scared the ever living shit outa me. When I saw it again in college, the idea that the devils in your life are really angels, trying to strip away all that is unnecessary in your life so that you can move on to a better place, struck me as a rather beautiful notion... and it still does to this day.

[mrmike]

Having been in the Army, I went to any movie that had that theme of Vietnam in the 80s' and 90s' (Platoon, Apocolypse now, etc), and when I saw it the first time it made me think of that story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" where a man believes he had escaped a hanging, only to find he never left. You did understand by the end that Jacob was freeing himself from the earth, but it wasn't until the final scene where you saw that the whole movie had all occurred in the last minutes of his life.

[JarOfRats]

The worst take I ever saw on Jacob's Ladder was some critic saying it was a good story, but ruined by all the Vietnam flashbacks. I wished I could have explained how horribly wrong he got the movie.

[attentiondeficitsquirrel]

Louie is his guardian angel. Jacob even says to him “Did I ever tell you that you look like an angel? An oversized cherub?” To which Louie replies, “Every time you see me.”

[kimackerman]

This movie breaks me everytime I see it. Jacob isn't a perfect man but damn do I feel like hugging him in every scene. He's a broken man still clinging to life, afraid to die like many of us. The whole film is him in purgatory. The nightmare scenes are definitely something and on another level, the scene of him being taken through the hospital still gives me chills. It's not a perfect movie but it is for me and will always be one of my favorites. Tim Robbins deserved an award for his acting in this film.

[robertwilliams]

The game Silent Hill 2 was heavily inspired by this movie and both are amazing pieces of work. Keep up the good work

[BeefySupremeTCG]

If you haven't seen them yet, see the deleted scenes from this movie, oh my god. If there was a director cut for this film I would pay an arm and a leg for it, because those cut scenes are genuinely terrifying.

[sivabala]

Back when horror movies didn't insult your intelligence

[riverplate]

It's TRUE. I was 13 when I saw this and in my mid 40's this still shows up in my head. The letting go part. This is a true classic.

[debr]

As a first responder, I always thought it was describing a time refered to as" the golden hour, " which is the time a person who has been critically injured gets emergency treatment/ surgery is about an hour. after that their chance of survival rapidly decreases. This was discovered during the Vietnam war.
When the army surgeon said he put up a hell of a fight nailed it for me.

[RainBirdx]

Another clue, is that Jacob is reading Albert Camus The Stranger in the subway carriage, the protagonist of that novel is a man whose dammed for being 'detached from humanity' sentenced to die and struggles to come to terms with his impending death till finally accepting it at the end.

[WrecklessEating]

This movie scared the crap out of me as a kid. Great stuff.

[dominicdelprincipe]

This movie... I tried to watch it a second time, and was disallowed by my lizard brain. This is one of the finest explorations of horror, insanity, and war ever committed to film

[alejandrocalle]

One of those rare movies that crosses 4 genres but executed brilliantly. Writing directions cinematography. All on point.

[dhoffnun]

"Dream on." That moment got me the most.

I don't think those scenes with his family were the real world at all, but that which he couldn't let go.

[MotleyStu-gvtb]

I think of this movie every time im going through a crisis. Makes me question my existence