#slash silly? slash srs? both | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rainbowolfe · 8 months ago

Text

The One They Love Most

What if I told you Kallamar was the one Shamura loved the most, then what?

That's what I said. It was /hj. I was just spit-balling. Being silly. Because what do you mean the one the moon loves the most isn't the sun? A love forbidden not by their peers or their family, but by nature itself? The ship humans have shipped since before written language?

And then I went to elaborate and I found some things and connected some dots, and it slowly stopped being silly. Now it's a real theory. It's /srs.

I strongly suspect that Aym and Baal weren't a gift for Narinder, but a gift for Kallamar. Making him the one Shamura loves most.

This all started with a one-off thought about how Kallamar was definitely somehow involved in the transaction of Aym and Baal. There are too many intersecting lines and connected dots for him not to be. The sun staffs and Aym's appearance reflecting Kallamar's (messed up ears, cut over an eye) are the big pieces, but even their move-sets point to his involvement.

Shamura uses melee attacks, but their form of melee is more aligned with the gauntlets. Shamura even slashes with four of their claws, mimicking the effect a gauntlet (or a clawed mammal) would have. The curses they use are poison, bombs, and fireballs. Visually, Aym and Baal have the same reddened feet and hands that Shamura has.

Narinder attacks exclusively using curses: fireball and chains, with the implication that he could use melee combat pre-banishment. But again, in that same gauntlet-esque way as Shamura. Kallamar is the only one who engages in melee combat with actual weapons—not just biological defense mechanisms. His curses are exclusively fireballs, but he also has the ability to summon enemies.

Aym and Baal use staffs that double as spears. (Assuming Aym can use his as a spear, since it has a spike on the end). Aym swings his like a sword. Interestingly, he swings it as a mix of a sword and dagger, as the dagger is the only weapon that has a forward thrust move. They use fireball and chain curses. Baal can summon enemies.

They're Narinder's spitting image, yet their designs also hold pieces of Shamura and Kallamar. Isn't that weird? Suspicious?

Then there's little things. Like how, in the Ars Goetia, Aym is also known as Harborym; and Baal is also known as Baalzebub. They could've been named anything, as their characters don't seem to be informed by the Ars Goetia demon they're named after, and yet they share a name with two of Kallamar's goons.

And how Kallamar Punished has Aym and Baal's leitmotif right at the start of it. (it's that 'call and response' melody in the background that starts at ~0:17) Aym and Baal appear on TOWWs track and we go yeah, that makes sense. Cause it does! They're a package deal bonded (or chained, according to some) to each other. So for Aym and Baal to appear on Kallamar's track...

Also the fact that Forneus lives on the coast of Anchordeep. Within destroyed "Walls of Ruin", something that explicitly belongs to the Old Faith.

In Pilgrim, Jalala and Rinor visit both Rakshasa's Restaurant and Forneus' home. At Rakshasa's, Jalala marks where they are on a topographical map. I matched this map to the main map.

This means that Rakshasa's Restaurant overlooks Anchordeep. Forneus is most likely somewhere in the area marked in green. Forneus' is the stop right after Rakshasa's (transitioning from sunset into nighttime) and if you choose to go the other direction you run into Plimbo a second time and miss the chance to meet Forneus at all.

Based on these images, she's settled between Midas' Cave and an unnamed but bare mountain. She lives on a hill that overlooks the ocean. There are some small islands visible here, but they're mostly flat, giving her a clear view of the horizon.

But there's something else. Something huge.

Narinder wouldn't have been The One Who Waits when Aym and Baal were taken.

"Two kits I did have, true love found! And yet one lackadaisy summer day, my beautiful children were taken away… a gift, they said, for the one they loved most, the one that waits… I wept, I keened… But how can one say no to a God?"

Narinder was made TOWW by being bound and exiled by the other Bishops. He was still known as "The Fifth" by everyone when it happened. And it happened either towards the end of the God Purge (because the Fanatic wouldn't include him as one of the five survivors if he'd been sealed by then) or after it. But the result is the same either way.

The Fanatic observes that Yngya must be dead because the leaves stopped changing color. So the Purge was wrapping up early-to-mid Fall, and it has perpetually been Fall since. Which means there is no Summer from that point on.

And regardless, Narinder isn't "the one that waits", he's "the one who waits". That's a red herring. Names in this game's dialogue are highlighted in yellow (and sometimes red). It's not even capitalized when Forneus says it. She could be talking about literally anyone. We all 'wait' for things.

But there's dialogue that narrows down the culprit list and brings another form of waiting to the table. Not at the Crown Fountain, where Death no longer wished to wait. But in Midas' Cave, where Followers have been subjected to a fate worse than death.

"...sparking gold one day found amongst the dregs, lost by a pirate with many legs..." "...pretty shiny prize for all...... they all want... they all want..." "...they all want... nothing remains... blood washes away in the tide..."

Before he mugs Lamb, Midas makes a comment about Anchordeep, something he doesn't do for any other location.

"Take care not to get lost. Things seem to get lost around here all the time... so easy to misplace one's Gold!"

This little comment can only be to connect with what the Giant Follower said. It wasn't anything special or arcane Plimbo lost, it was just. Gold. Coin or bars or both.

Gold Coin: The lust for gold is oft all consuming of one's heart. Gold Bars: Countless souls have been lost in pursuit of this glittering treasure. Gold Nugget: Said to be the tears of an ancient goddess.

But it was special (and ultimately devastating) to the community he lost it in, because "the dregs" is a euphemism for impoverished communities. The ghetto. The undesirables. And that ties in with the figurative meaning of 'bottom dweller' in a way the literal meaning doesn't. :3c

Finally, there's legitimately nothing in Anchordeep. We see the remains of temples, which means there were other Gods residing here at some point. There are the remains of both housing and ships, destroyed machinery, and ruins of what may have been monoliths or similar sacred structures. In Pilgrim, there are no fun "stops" when the girls reach Anchordeep. Anura has Spore Grotto and Smuggler's Sanctuary; Darkwood has everything else. In the journal, Jalala is only inspired to draw/catalog some sea life and coral formations.

The descriptions of our culprit the Giant Follower offers are most likely meant to be taken figuratively. (and even literally, they don't actually work for Midas either.)

"...bottom dweller he was, muck eating prey..."

Outside of a way of classifying sea life, a 'bottom dweller' can refer to both a low-class, low-ranked person in society AND someone of poor character (scum, scammers, etc). It could even be a reference to where Ratoo's lover originates from, whose bed is 'at the bottom of the sea'.

'Prey' in the context of this universe just means someone who doesn't (willfully) engage in cannibalism. The question for Tier 2 of Sustenance is "Food of the predator, or food of the prey?". Follower meat or Grass.

Muck is: 'Something regarded as worthless, sordid [ignoble], or corrupt.' So, a consumer of beings that are considered dirty or inherently corrupt. Like how many IRL faiths disallow the eating of anything that 'crawls on its belly' or feeds off the ground, like shellfish, snakes, or pigs.

What in this world would be considered unfit for consumption?

...

Heretics.

The Fleece of the Heretics: An ignoble garb, worn by only the most unholy heretics. via Chemach; "They are hungry, hungry for miscreant flesh..." The Heart of a Heretic: Unholy hearts [...] cast in vile, impermeable, unrelenting terror.

And that's exactly what the Old Faith's Followers are. Heretics. They may not know that, but they are. Leshy and Shamura are explicitly stated to eat their Followers. Heket presumably does, being inclined to Gluttony as a Follower. I doubt Kallamar is the exception. You are what you eat, after all.

Honestly, I would argue that a God eating their Follower is, on its own, 'muck-eating'. Cannibalism is frowned upon in a cosmic sense. Eating the Follower Meat Meal gives Lamb Diseased Hearts. The lore text for Follower Meat is very accusatory (they gave their soul, you took their flesh). The Cannibalism Ritual produces guaranteed sin.

And depending on the rules of Australian grammar (which I cannot read about... for free, anyways), the intention might even be "muck" (scumbag person) that eats "prey" (helpless creatures).

"...he waits, waits and then takes... even muck eaters have teeth..."

He waits [stays; or serves] and then takes [captures; controls, or swindles]. He waits... not for something inevitable, but for the right moment. He's an opportunist.

"Have teeth" is an idiom that means 'To have enough power or support of authority to compel obedience or punish offenders, as of law.

Even shameful, 'unclean' people have power.

He is he of blight. While a blight can mean sickness or plant disease, it can also mean someone/something that ruins, destroys, or otherwise devalues things. A scourge. A bane, if you will. 👀

Kallamar has always had a reputation as a coward. At minimum, for as along as the Red Crown has been apart of this Godly ecosystem. Your siblings wouldn't really be considered your "peers", so it would've been other Gods (while they still existed) who knew Kallamar as such. He's also known as a coward by Followers. So it seems very likely that's how Kallamar would be referred to.

The one that waits [[and then takes]].

(congrats you've reached the halfway point)

Throughout the entire game, Shamura only ever talks about two of their siblings: Kallamar and Narinder. Narinder is frequently on their mind because, as Jojo puts it, they won't allow themselves to forget what happened and that there was a fifth. And yet they are, for some reason, taking a stroll through Anchordeep reminiscing about Kallamar and his fear of the Red Crown.

We don't get a fourth interaction with Kallamar, because he's too terrified to leave his temple. We instead get an extra interaction with Shamura, triggered by Baalzebub's (and by extension, Haborym's) death. Even if they didn't show up specifically to intimidate Lamb... there's nothing in Anchordeep besides Kallamar. So for what reason are they in Anchordeep if not for him?

Whatever they're remembering is definitely a conversation. And as seen with their "Feeling Confused" thoughts, they speak as if they're experiencing the past. This:

"Kallamar was always frightened of the Red Crown." "Yes, fear made a coward of him."

Is definitely them responding to someone.

But my point is, is that Kallamar holds a similar level of importance in Shamura's mind as Narinder. A level Heket and Leshy don't reach.

"Ooh, kits... I remember, I remember... two kits in my claws... a gift..." "I did not want him to be... lonely..."

Regardless of if I've convinced you that Aym and Baal were a gift for Kallamar, this line needs to be rethought because of the timing talked about in the first half. They were taken as a gift before the Purge, and thus before Narinder's banishment. So... why would Shamura be concerned that either of them would be lonely?

There's also Narinder's perception of them. "Intended as Keepers". But why would he need Keepers? He's chained up in another realm. Even if he did manage to break free... what are two, inexperienced children going to do about it? Not to mention, they're loyal to him.

In fact, I would argue that Narinder saying that he can't be blamed for his 'influence' makes it sound like Baal and Aym chose to go to him of their own volition. They were intended to become someone's Keepers, but they were untrained and undisciplined, and thus couldn't/didn't want to perform the job.

Aym and Baal are more than just companions to combat isolation and loneliness. More than just cats that look like Narinder to a weird degree. They're hearts. Each one half of a whole that rightfully belongs to Forneus.

There's probably something to be said about Shamura being unwilling/unable to give their own heart, and opting to take someone else's, but that's a theory for another time.

Kallamar's Top 5 List characterizes him as someone desperate to find "True Love". It would make sense for Shamura to try to give him that in the form of Aym and Baal, since they fulfill that role for Forneus.

And there's a handful of reasons why Kallamar would be at risk of loneliness in a way the others aren't.

-its implied that Kallamar made a habit of hiding in his temple even before the Lamb or Narinder's banishment, as it was a place of safety in his mind. A place untouchable by whatever conflicts he didn't want to face—of which there seem to have been a lot of. Which would explain why his cowardice is so well-known and talked about. It's something that's so ingrained into his instincts, he goes to hide in the ruins of a temple that clearly cannot protect him.

-Heket clearly favors Leshy the most out of all of them. So that pairs them off, leaving Kallamar and Shamura (or Kallamar and Narinder). But Shamura and Narinder are, at some point, busy experimenting with resurrection. Leaving Kallamar alone. With the implication that Shamura allowed themselves to die so that Narinder could try to resurrect them, Shamura would gift Kallamar the boys with the assumption that it would be a while before they came back (if they managed to come back at all lol).

-While Kallamar is in Purgatory reliving his final moments, it's interesting that he's experiencing a memory where he's been trapped somewhere. If he's being held captive, then that would give a need for both companions and Keepers.

And that's why Kallamar is the one Shamura loves most.

Also the way Kallamar's inclined to depend on Shamura even when they don't really have the ability to protect him anymore. His first concern is what they're going to tell Shamura, and it's only Heket's intervention that stops him from involving them sooner. When Shamura's in the room he talks over Heket, when previously he conceded to her. And when he's revived, the first name out his mouth is Shamura's.

Perhaps there's something Kallamar feels guilty about regarding Shamura, in the same way Shamura has something they feel guilty about regarding Narinder—hence why he's always on their mind.

Final Tangent:

Long, long ago... one of my very first theories... was about the base weapons. Assigning them to the Bishops since, you know, there's five of them. And I ascribed the Crusader's Blade to Narinder, since that's the one Lamb starts with. A "Stalwart companion to the wandering warrior."

Forneus says about Baal and Aym, "O, the soul of a wanderer one, and a warrior the other!" Baal and Aym represent two halves of a whole heart. Combine those two halves, and the whole is a wandering warrior. The idea was that Narinder's influence on them was split between his clashing ideals. One took on his aggressive traits, the other the gentler traits.

But Pestilence makes it out that those base weapons are associated with Kallamar. So.

#cult of the lamb #cotl theory #cotl shamura #cotl kallamar #cotl bishops #cotl #long post #insanely long post #the more i thought about it the more i believed it lol

26 notes · View notes

weaponsdrawn · 3 years ago

Text

uhhh methinks that spamvil, stannarrator, and fluffybird are the trifecta of “you can easily take their relationship as one that has divorced energy but you gotta make sure the divorced energy is comical and funny. once you start taking it seriously youve lost the charm of the ship, now its just two gays getting divorced whats the fun in that” but like. in different ways.

#queenie.txt #tw divorce #cw divorce #tw divorce ment #cw divorce ment #divorce ment #divorce #but YEAH this is my opinion but i firmely belive this #to be more exact stan.narrator is they get divorced just to get married all over again #for shits and giggles because they both dont know about vow renewal and whatnot #and they absolutely dont take it seriously at all #sp.amvil is they are constantly divorced and married. i saw a post about how they have like a big ceramony for the divorce and they actually #get more romantic slash affectionate all while planning the next big breakup that theyre gonna make a huge show outta #and fluffyb.ird is like #ok yknow how animals will just sometimes playfight and all #methinks its like that but to more comical extremems because im pretty sure nothing can actually perminately physically damage these puppets #its like idk their own silly little fucked up love language and they both think nothing more of it than that #i dunno if that makes any sence but tltr i dont think the fighting is That srs it just happens and they both have fun #anyway yea.#dhmis #stanley parable #deltarune

8 notes · View notes

a-ard · 3 years ago

Text

bou and shira shawshank redemption theory

anyway i just love dissecting shiraishi

this is a stretch and I will use SR characters loosely but I’m shameless so whatever

what if shira's ending is yet another of noda's reference to shawshank redemption? okay spoiler if you havent watched it

Andy (SR main char) disappeared after he successfully ran away. turned out he actually stole the corrupt money from the officer like what Shiraishi did

Red, Andy’s close friend, then took a journey to a field. realizing he really had no place, nor friend, nor family to call his own after he went out of jail but then later found a tin box and you know whats inside it? a letter from Andy and an envelope containing some of the stolen money (coin/gold in Shiraishi case). Red later found out that Andy was on an island from that exact envelope

Sugi followed Asirpa because he had no place, nor friend or family to call his own and found an envelope of coin. They later found out that Shiraishi was on an island from that exact envelope. see where i’m going here?

in SR, Andy asked Red to come to a very small and quiet fishing village place on the Mexican coast. which he actually had previously discussed with Red just like how Bou had discussed it Shira

oh ALSO Andy told Red how Zihuantanejo is his dream home, and how the pacific ocean has no memory. the place where he would like to go so he can start everything all over again..

so like... Shira here is both Andy (stolen the corrupt money and spent it dry) and Red (listened to his friend's dream and followed the map to where Zihuantanejo is. the quiet place where Andy slash Bou wanted to spend his whole life after breaking out of jail)

Sugi in some way is also Red, with how he lost his ways and needed something that he could follow to feel alive again

also in SR the officer literally killed inmates to keep the money safe. you know.... like golden kamuy huh.... Andy used the blood money (gold) for his own dream just like what Bou intended to do... SHIRAISHI IS BOU/ANDY BY PROXY OKAY. DO YOU GET IT?

SHIRAISHI ISN’T AN ASSHOLE OKAY HE LOVES BOUTAROU THAT’S WHY HE MADE SURE BOU WILL GET HIS DREAM COME TRUE

because the thing is.. noda LOVES referencing movies and i think this is the most reasonable answer like my brain tried their best making sense of things. im pretty sure he had previously planned out the ending from waaay back and just couldn’t execute it smoothly w/ how the magazine run the industry like the marine. its silly at first but its actually a very bittersweet ending both for shira and bou

idk IDK i feel insane

#golden kamuy #my post #IM INSANE IM INSANE #boutarou #shiraishi yoshitake

7 notes · View notes

lizardlicks · 9 years ago

Text

Baubles and Other Fine Things Part 2

Part 1 here ===> Link

A heap of boxes, all wrapped perfectly in brightly colored paper, and glittery bows greets you. They’re piled in the middle of the formal dining room table, formed into an intimidating tower of fake cheer and misery that you’re compelled to face, again, just like every year before this one. There’s an envelope propped against it. You slink forward as that familiar, numb fog fills you up again. The envelope is thick, smells like something expensive, and burns your sinuses. The card inside has a seahorse on the cover, and some trite little nautical themed pun. You ignore it, and pull out the folded stationery paper that’s been defaced by your father’s jagged handwriting instead.

‘Eridan,

Happy 17th! Hope you didn’t think your old man would be getting too slow witted to remember your birthday. I’m sorry I’m not there in person right now. It looks like this deal is going to push out another three weeks but I promise I’ll come home soon. There’s blood in the water and I’m homing in on that kill, ha ha! When I get back we’ll go out and celebrate for real. Whatever you want to do, my treat.

Your counselor tells me you’re starting to adjust to the new school. I’m so glad, I can’t wait to meet your new friends. I know how you teens are, but hope you won’t be too embarrassed to introduce them to your dad. I know that last year was really rough, but I’m so proud of you. If you keep trying, and applying yourself, you can put that little episode behind you. Keep up the good work, kiddo!

- Love, Dad.’

The paper crumples easily in your fist. You let it drop to the floor without bothering to note where it lands. The maid will probably find it and throw it out in the morning. You grab your school bag, and drag it back to your room, but all of your focus seems to have evaporated into the air, along with your ability to feel anything. You try to reach for worry, anxiety enough to kick start you into pulling out your books to study, but it comes back empty. Everything is a yawning hollow where you’d expect a person to be, and around you the house is as quiet and still as a mausoleum.

———-

Kar slams his bookbag down next to you, and you jump. He’s glaring.

“What’d I do?”

“You didn’t tell me yesterday was your birthday.”

“Oh!” Oh is that all? “Yesterday was my birthday.”

“No, dummy! You need to give advanced warning about this kind of shit!” He pushes the bag aside to plop down his lunch tray, and sits. You only have a moment to wonder where his shadow went before Sol materializes to your other side, and blocks in your exit. Their elbows and thighs touch yours, giving you a blessed sense of grounding that you’ve been missing all day. “I don’t have time to plan anything now, it’s all gonna be rushed.”

Sol snickers. “Get ready for the Vantas birthday party experience.”

“What? No, Kar. You’ve got important things to do. You shouldn’t be fussin’ over silly kid shit for my sake.”

“Is the idiot done letting flies into his mouth? Okay, good, shut up time now.” He stabs at his lunch- you think it’s salisbury steak, maybe- but he waves the mystery meat toward you like an accusatory finger rather than eating it. “It’s not silly kid shit. Your birthday is the one day of the year where the world is required to stop and acknowledge the fact that you continue to exist in spite of its efforts to make that stop being a thing. We are going to celebrate it right.”

“Yeah, no one should be alone on their birthday.” Sol agrees. “Not even assholes like you.”

Your mouth opens, but no words come out, so you close it again. Under the table, you grope for their hands, find Kar’s first, then Sol’s, and they both squeeze tight.

———-

Kar’s place is a modest little building that’s stuffed full with people at all times of the day. His dad is some kind of minister, you think, but the nice kind. He’s never proselytized at you, and you’re pretty sure he’s supportive of the fact that you and his son are some kind of thing, even when Kar and Sol are also some kind of thing… His mom has tattoos and a belly laugh, and his grandmother made you pancakes that one night you spent over, and she talks about Stonewall like she was actually there.

When you pull up to the house, it’s brightly lit, as usual and there’s a hoard of cars, as is also usual, but you don’t think you’ve seen them all there at once before. It makes you nervous for absolutely no reason you can fathom. Rather than go in right away, you go around to the back of your car and start pulling boxes out of the trunk. Their wrapping glitters in the fading sunlight reflected by the snow. Kar appears on the porch, followed shortly by his dad, and they hustle over to greet you.

It’s Vantas Sr. that speaks first. He laughs, kind, and a little surprised. “What’s all this then?”

“My dad sends me a bunch a stuff from overseas whenever he misses a birthday,” you explain as he and Kar both reach to take packages from you. “I never have any sort a use for it, but I thought maybe… I just wanted. If you want it… thank you.” Your words stall out. They both stand there blinking at you, still confused, and your face heats. Then Mr. Vantas cracks the biggest smile you’ve ever seen, and he pulls you into a side hug with his free arm.

“That’s mighty thoughtful of you Eridan, thanks gladly accepted and returned.” Kar’s smiling at you. You did something right, and that’s all the matters.

———-

You have never seen this many people stuffed into a single contemporary living room in your life. Karkat, his parents, grandmother, brother, and sisters, and at least half a dozen cousins, plus Sol, his dad, his brother, and his brother’s nurse-slash-girlfriend finish up the loudest, and most off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday” you have ever heard. The cake is lopsided. It’s covered in those cheap little twisty candles, half of them set in crooked, and crowded around ‘Happy B-Day Eridan!!!!’ piped in purple glitter frosting. Muelin picked it for you, and she also opted to leave out most of the word ‘birth’ to fit more exclamation points with little heart dots.

You blow out the candles, and the room erupts into near deafening cheers. And then you hiccup once as the tears start to fall.

“Why’s he crying,” you hear Nep failing to whisper at her sister. “Do birthdays make him sad?”

‘They used to’, you think, and Mr. Vantas gently rests a hand on your shoulder while Kar wraps around you from the other side.

“He’s just a little overwhelmed right now, sweetheart. Let’s have some quiet time while we eat for a bit, okay?”

The lopsided cake tastes absolutely amazing.

———-

The smallest cousins are absolutely delighted by the idea of getting presents on someone else’s birthday. They squeal over the Harry Potter complete blu-ray set, and one of them looks fit to burst when they open the box with a drone in it.

Kar is nuzzling against your ear. Sol’s pulled up a chair to rest his shoulder against yours while he browses on his tablet. Someone pushes a lumpy present into your hands, and sweetly kisses your temple, and you know it isn’t either of them when Porrim says, “happy birthday, sweetheart,” from somewhere behind you. When you open it, you find a hand knit sweater in navy and dark purple; the material is so soft to your fingers you think she must have spent a small fortune on the yarn. You put it on immediately and can not be separated from it for the rest of the evening.

She starts off the slow parade of gift givers, a single drop that becomes a steady trickle. Almost everything is hand made. Pictures, poems, little crafts, each one made with care with you in mind. You marvel at the fact that you’ve hardly known these families more than a few months, yet they already consider you theirs. You belong. You’re wanted, fully and unconditionally. It doesn’t take much more than that to start the tears back up again, but you decline the offers for another break, at least for a while. There’s a lot to take in, and you won’t fully process it until later, when you’re alone with Sol and Kar, snuggled between them in Kar’s bed. For the first time in a long, long time, you feel as if you’ve found safe harbor in the midst of your personal storm.

#erikar #erisolkat #solkat #eridan ampora #karkat vantas #sollux captor #humanstuck #baubles au #lizard writes stupid things

74 notes · View notes

the-master-cylinder · 5 years ago

Text

SUMMARY Jessica (Zohra Lampert) has been released from a mental institution to the care of her husband, Duncan (Barton Heyman), who has given up his job as string bassist for the New York Philharmonic and purchased a rundown farmhouse on an island in upstate New York. When Jessica, Duncan, and their hippie friend Woody (Kevin O’Connor) arrive, they are surprised to find a mysterious drifter, Emily (Mariclare Costello), already living there. When Emily offers to move on, Jessica invites her to dine with them and stay the night.

The following day, Jessica, seeing how attracted Woody is to Emily, asks Duncan to invite her to stay indefinitely. Jessica begins hearing voices and sees a mysterious young blonde woman (Gretchen Corbett) looking at her from a distance before disappearing. Later, Jessica is grabbed by someone under the water in the cove while she is swimming. Jessica is afraid to talk about these things with Duncan or Woody, for fear that they will think she is relapsing. She also becomes aware that Duncan seems to be attracted to Emily, and that the men in the nearby town, all of whom are bandaged in some way, are hostile towards them.

Duncan and Jessica decide to sell antiques found in the house at a local shop, one of which is a silver-framed portrait of the house’s former owners, the Bishop family—father, mother, and daughter Abigail. The antique dealer, Sam Dorker (Alan Manson), tells them the story of how Abigail drowned in 1880 just before her wedding day. Legend claims that she is still alive, roving the island as a vampire. Jessica finds the story fascinating, but Duncan, afraid that hearing about such things will upset his wife, cuts Dorker short. Later, as Jessica prepares to make a headstone rubbing on Abigail Bishop’s grave, she notices the blonde woman beckoning her to follow. The woman leads Jessica to a cliff, at the bottom of which lies Dorker’s bloodied body. By the time Jessica finds Duncan, however, the body is gone. Jessica and Duncan spot the woman standing on the cliff above them, causing Duncan to give chase. When the woman is caught and questioned by the couple, she remains silent and quickly flees when Emily approaches.

That night, Duncan tells Jessica that she needs to return to New York to resume her psychiatric treatment. Jessica forces him to sleep on the couch, where he is seduced by Emily. The next day, Jessica finds the portrait of the Bishop family, which she and Duncan had sold to Dorker the previous day, back in the attic; she observes that Abigail Bishop, as seen on the photo, bears a striking resemblance to Emily. Jessica agrees to go with Emily to swim in the cove. While swimming, Emily vanishes from sight; Jessica hears Emily’s voice in her head and watches as Emily emerges from the lake in a wedding gown. Emily attempts to bite her neck, but Jessica flees, locking herself in her bedroom in the house. Hours pass and Jessica leaves to hitch a ride into town. Woody, who has been working in the orchard, returns to the house, where Emily bites his neck.

When Jessica gets into town, she sees Duncan’s car and asks about his whereabouts, but no one will speak to her; she then encounters Sam Dorker, and terrified, runs back to the house. She collapses in the orchard and later is found by Duncan, who takes her home. In their bedroom, the couple go to lie down; Jessica notices a cut on Duncan’s neck, and Emily then enters the room brandishing a knife, with the townsmen following behind her. Jessica flees the house, knocking over Duncan’s bass case, which contains the corpse of the mute woman.

Jessica runs through the orchard and comes across Woody’s corpse, his throat slashed. At daybreak, Jessica makes it to the ferry and tries to board, but the ferryman refuses to let her on. She jumps into a nearby rowboat and paddles out into the lake. When a hand reaches into the boat from the water, she stabs the person in the back several times with a pole hook. As the body floats away, she sees that it is Duncan. From the shore, Emily and the townsmen watch her.

DEVELOPMENT/PRODUCTION It all began with a father-and-son team, Charles Moss Sr. and Jr., who owned the Criterion, one of the top movie houses in New York, along with a chain of other East Coast theaters. The Mosses wanted to make their own film, and hired Lee Kalcheim to script it. Kalcheim had been writing for television since 1965, working on the likes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Paper Chase, All in the Family and M*A*S*H. The original idea was to do a send up of horror films, which was a natural for Kalcheim given his comedy background, and the fact that he was not a fan of the genre—“I find them slightly silly,” he says.

Kalcheim, who wrote the script in the Moss offices, lived in Connecticut, not far from where Jessica eventually filmed, and he incorporated many locales that were close to him, including coves in front of his home and a ferry that was within walking distance. “The ferryboat was at the end of the road that I lived on, and the orchard was right up the street,” he recalls.

Jessica would undergo plenty of changes in the transition from horror/comedy to a genuine scare film, but as Kalcheim notes, “The situations stayed—the people showing up at the house, the kind of weirdness of the place.” In his original script, a monster lived in the coves. “It was during the Vietnam War, so you had all these hippies, which is still part of the film. And I believe the monster was killed when the lead character rode a motorcycle that had an American flag with a point on the end of it, and he rammed it through the monster.”

Then director John Hancock, and a more serious approach to the material, came in. Hancock, a native of Kansas City, was discovered by William Wyler’s daughter, a development executive for the legendary producer Joseph E. Levine. She saw an Academy Award-nominated short he made in 1970 called Sticky My Fingers…Fleet My Feet and got a number of people to see it including the Mosses, who immediately considered Hancock to direct their project. “The script I was given was kind of a parody of a horror film,” Hancock confirms, “and I tried to make it a genuinely scary movie. I attempted to make it as real as possible.”

Hancock grew up on a fruit farm, which he incorporated into the film, and applied the memories and equipment to horrific ends, like a crop sprayer whose poison kills humans as well as insects. “All that personal material, it’s like a child’s ghostly visit to a farm with a sprayer that poisons you,” Hancock says. “That must have been how I felt as a kid going to my grandparents’ farm, and that made Jessica unlike other scary movies. It was a very personal picture.”

His father was a bass player, and in the film one of the characters plays a huge upright bass. Hancock’s college roommate also felt that the film’s redheaded vampire, Emily (played by Mariclaire Costello), bore some family resemblance. Recalls the director, “He said, ‘If you don’t think that redhead is your mother, you’re crazy!’ I wasn’t conscious of it, but he claimed it was!”

Hancock, who had never shot a fright flick before, worked closely with the Mosses and incorporated their suggestions while he rewrote the script. “They wanted a seance. Why? ‘Well, because people like them.’ They wanted a little girl running around in a gauzy white (shroud), “because it will be scary.’ They had big input into this film, and a very strong sense of what audiences liked. They also had a good sense of what scenes make the audiences go get candy, and I tried to avoid those!”

As Hancock wrote the script, “I learned that indeed the things that scare you in writing them will scare an audience. Locations that scare you when you’re scouting them will scare an audience. I learned to trust in that sense. When I first looked at the mansion where we shot the film, there was a hallway upstairs with a lot of doors in it, and I got kind of a chill. I thought, ‘Well, this is a scary location,’ and indeed it was. All those doors, somebody could come out of any one of them.”

In one scene, Jessica flees into the house and locks herself in her room. As she cowers in fright, papers she posted on the wall flap loudly in the wind, and her inner voices whisper through the walls. “As I was writing that, I got chills, and I was pleased that it was scary to an audience too,” Hancock says.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Zohra Lampert, who plays Jessica, recalls meeting Hancock backstage when she was performing in Mother Courage with Anne Bancroft at Broadway’s Martin Beck Theater. He approached her about the role, “and I accepted, trusting his judgment,” she says. “I have great fondness for John Hancock, and enjoyed working with him very much.”

“I had seen Zohra in several plays and dated her briefly,” Hancock adds. “I thought she’d be good for the role and vulnerable, easily frightened. A good screamer. The ladies in these films have to be able to scream!” To prepare for the part, Lampert worked with her lifelong teacher, Mira Rostova, as did Costello; Rostova’s other students have included Alec Baldwin, Montgomery Clift and Roddy McDowall.

Practically everyone who worked on Let’s Scare Jessica to Death was a novice to the horror genre, and Hancock bought a 16mm projector and rented a number of Hitchcock films to prepare for the shoot. Jessica has often been compared to the cult chiller Carnival of Souls, which Hancock and Kalcheim both claim they haven’t seen. “I’m not even sure I’d seen Night of the Living Dead by then,” Kalcheim says, referring to another genre classic that Jessica has been compared to.

Let’s Scare Jessica to Death opens and closes with the same scene, which was filmed off a pier. Against a beautifully shot sunset, Jessica sits in a boat with her back to the camera as she slowly drifts out into a river and we hear her thoughts in voiceover: “I sit here and I can’t believe that it happened. And yet, I have to believe it. Dreams or nightmares, madness or sanity, I don’t know which is which.” Jessica has been in a mental hospital for six months, and her husband is hoping some time on a farm in upstate New York will do her some good.

“For the first time in months I’m free,” her narration tells us. “Forget the doctors. Forget that place. I’m OK now. We’ll start over.” But she starts seeing and hearing things she’s not sure are real. Voices echo in her head, asking, “Jessica, why have you come here?” But she tells herself, “Act normal,” so as not to alarm her husband.

Arriving at the farmhouse, they discover the hippie girl Emily, who was living there previously, thinking the house was abandoned-or so she says. Soon they learn the truth: Emily drowned in the cove in 1880. As the townsfolk tell the tale, her body was never recovered, and she’s now a vampire roaming the countryside.

Hancock wanted to make Let’s Scare Jessica to Death a variation on The Turn of the Screw where you’re not sure if the heroine is truly crazy or if the horror is really happening. Jessica’s husband certainly has his doubts as to whether his wife’s condition has improved, or if she’s relapsing. “Jess? I think we should go back to New York for a while.” he tells her. “You can see your doctor.” He pauses to consider what he’s saying. “If you want.” As she approached her performance, Lampert says, “I believe Jessica was more dubious about her husband’s fidelity, as well as his belief in her, than anything else.”

Let’s Scare Jessica to Death was shot in Old Saybrook and East Haddon, Connecticut. The main house where most of the central action takes place was called the Dickinson Mansion, located in the town of Essex. The first night the film company went to the house being used for exteriors, an incredible fog had rolled in which gave the area a spooky haze that was used throughout the movie. “We got lucky with that,” says Hancock. “It happened to be there when it was time to shoot.”

Primarily a stage director, Hancock was a bit uncertain once he started making his first feature. “I didn’t have any idea what I was doing!” he laughs. “I tended to work quite openly with actors in the theater. I tried to free them up, get them to be real, full and expressive, and limiting that to what a camera sees was something I found frustrating. It was a little hard to accept that indeed I did have to block them through the camera; I couldn’t just have the scene be good, then take a picture. Then I realized it wouldn’t kill off their spontaneity entirely, and accepted to some degree that you lose a little bit of that. A lot of good cameramen will free up actors from marks for that very reason.”

The director recalls that the first cinematographer on Let’s Scare Jessica to Death kept regarding him like he was incompetent. “So I fired him after the first week, and got one who didn’t look at me like that!” That cameraman was Bob Baldwin, who went on to shoot I Drink Your Blood (1970) director David Durston, The Exterminator (1980) and The Soldier for James Glickenhaus and Frankenhooker and Basket Case 2 for Frank Henenlotter. Before Jessica, Baldwin had previously lensed a number of black-and-white stag films in 35mm. “I believe Jessica was one of the first pictures I shot that was not a nudie,” Baldwin says.

Unlike Hancock, the DP didn’t watch any horror films for inspiration before the shoot. As he recalls, they went up to Connecticut right away, and there wasn’t much time to prep. While the first cameraman on Jessica didn’t think Hancock knew what he was doing, Baldwin felt the situation was a big step up from his previous projects.

“The cameraman is really the director on those nudies, because you’re movin’ the camera and doin’ the shots, and all the director cares about is gettin’ the shot, and gettin’ out of there to return the equipment because they’ve only got it for the weekend,” Baldwin says. “Jessica was probably the first really good organization I worked with; it wasn’t like people grasping. When you start, you know when you have a director who knows what he’s doing. That to me was a revelation, I guess !”

Lampert especially enjoyed working with Baldwin, who was “very sensitive to the performer,” she says. “We understood each other and worked in tandem.” Baldwin replies, “I always sort of pride myself on that. I always had a habit of going into makeup and just sitting and schmoozing with the actors before the day started. I spent time with Zohra in the rehearsals, and I was always around. You get so you kind of hold their hand or whatever it takes for them to do their thing.

“Zohra was a good actress,” Baldwin continues. “I felt she had plenty of screen presence. She spent a lot of time developing that character. Some actors can finish a scene and then be back to their regular selves, joking around, then on take two they’re right back into the role. But she’d get into character and spend the day there.”

Let’s Scare Jessica to Death gave Baldwin the opportunity to experiment with camera tricks. One special effect he pulled off was making the ghostly apparition of Emily appear and disappear in the lake, which he accomplished with a Polaroid filter that worked like a Venetian blind. When the filter was rotated one way, you could see the actress floating underneath, but when it was turned another way, only the reflecting glare of the water was visible. “We did a lot of tricks that they do with computers today,” Baldwin notes. “Sometimes I think that the computer is what made everybody lazy. We did a hell of a job for the money we had.”

The one memory that stands out for those who worked on Let’s Scare Jessica to Death was the weather, which made it difficult to film in the lake. “I remember we shot in October, so for all those scenes in the water, they were freezin’ their asses off!” says Kalcheim. “If you look at the leaves on the trees, you’ll see it was not conducive to swimming!” Not only was the water frigid, “Our legs were being nibbled on by fish!” says Hancock.

“The water was cold, I remember that part!” adds Baldwin. “And poor Mariclaire, she had to swim in that white gown with that white makeup.”

Director John Hancock Interview

John D. Hancock

WHAT WAS THE BEGINNING OF YOUR INVOLVEMENT WITH LET’S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH? John Hancock: I’d made a short film on a grant from the AFI called Sticky My Fingers, Fleet My Fest that was about businessmen who play touch football in Central Park. It had received an Oscar nomination and had also been shown by CBS during half-time of their big Thanksgiving football game. That secured me a lot of attention and William Wyler’s daughter Kathy, saw it…. She then recommended me to the producers of Jessica, who were looking for a director. There was a very important chain of exhibitors known as B.S. Moss Enterprises who were run by a father-and-son team who were both named Charlie Moss.

DID YOU EVER CONSIDER RETAINING KALCHEIM ‘S TITLE: IT DRINKS HIPPIE BLOOD? John Hancock: No! Kalcheim later wrote comedies like MA’S H and specialized more in humour than horror Naturally, he delivered a script that read like a parody of a scary movie. It was a playful send-up of the horror genre and didn’t take itself seriously at all. From what I remember, it had some hippies moving out to an isolated house in the country who encounter a blood-drinking monster that lives in the water. That was the nugget of a good idea but Kalcheim ‘s whole approach to the story, the characters – and the monster – did not interest me very much beyond that. The Mosses then asked me if I wanted to do it, and I said, “Sure, but only if I can rewrite the script.” I made it eminently clear to them that did not want to do a satire of a horror picture. wanted to do a movie that was legitimately terrifying

KALCHEIM ADOPTED THE PSEUDONYM “NORMAN JONAS” AS HIS CO-WRITING CREDIT AFTER YOU REVISED HIS DRAFT, BUT WHY DID YOU INSIST ON CALLING YOURSELF “RALPH ROSE”? John Hancock: I believe Kalcheim used his fathers’ first name for his credit as I did with mine but, in retrospect, I probably made a mistake in using the pseudonym. The producers wanted certain things in the script like a séance and this mysterious girl dressed in white who appears to Jessica. These additions didn’t make much sense to me, but the Mosses felt they would be particularly enjoyable and scary. I trusted their instincts because they had a concrete experience of audiences; they knew what people liked and what they didn’t like and in that regard they certainly had an advantage over most studio executives If you are a seasoned exhibitor, you know what kinds of sequences will make audiences get up and go buy candy and what sequences will keep them glued firmly to their seats. So I inserted the things they asked for into the screenplay, thinking, “Well, they are probably smart so I do as they ask.” … I didn’t want to be deemed responsible for these things as a writer, but I was certainly willing to be held accountable for them as a director

HOW DID YOU APPROACH REWORKING THE STORY? John Hancock: My initial approach to rewriting Jessica was to introduce as much personal and autobiographical material into the film as I possibly could. So the location of the fruit farm, an apple farm, and the image of the crop sprayer spewing pesticide is very much a scene out of my own childhood, have very strong memories of my father arriving back home coated white with poison and I did a lot of spraying myself so that cozy rural milieu was incredibly familiar to me. My father also played the double bass like Jessica’s husband does in the film. That big, black, coffin-like bass case was very much a fixture of my youth. It was something that traveled back and forth with us from our house in Chicago out to our farm in Indiana because, being a musician, Dad would take his bass along so he could practice.

WHY WERE YOU COMPELLED TO INVEST THE FILM WITH SO MANY ASPECTS OF YOUR LIFE? John Hancock: I probably wanted to appropriate it make it something unique to me. I do think the feeling of being alone on the farm as a child certainly filtered into both the script and the film. I don’t know to what extent I specifically set out to do that, but it did make its presence felt. Jessica is a little like a child’s view of moving out to a farm: that feeling of wonder, curiosity and fear. 1 was very fond of our farm, but the pesticides, the loneliness, the graves and the idea that a lot of other people had actually died in the house where we were living – all of those things crawled out from my conscious and subconscious mind, and informed the movie. In scouting the film, I found several spooky locations that certainly scared me-interiors as well as exteriors. … I used an upstairs hallway in the house where Jessica and her companions are staying that had so many doors there was something quite disturbing about it: the idea that someone – or something – could suddenly come lurching out of the shadows at any moment and grab you. It was very unsettling. I think a couple of the most effective scenes in Jessica are filmed in that hallway

SOME CRITICS FEEL JESSICA EXTRACTS FROM CARNIVAL OF SOULS AND NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. WERE THOSE MOVIES IN ANY WAY INFLUENTIAL FOR YOU? John Hancock: It’s true that Carnival of Souls and Night of the Living Dead sometimes get mentioned in relation to Jessica, but I had not seen either film before making my picture. As a matter of fact, when I eventually saw Night of the Living Dead a few years later, I didn’t like it at all. Frankly, I found it crude and heavy-handed and I’m still not a fan of it. I don’t wish to offend or dismay anybody by saying that I certainly appreciate the fact that a lot of people consider that picture to be important and influential; I’m merely stating it was neither of those things for me. However, one film I did very much like and I had actually seen it before making Jessica – Was The Haunting. I thought that was a stunning movie and the idea of having a neurotic female as the lead character was an incredibly useful thing. It invited all kinds of underlying tenures, subtleties and developments to our story

SUCH AS THE USE OF AN UNRELIABLE NARRATOR John Hancock: Yes, and, of course, that was a literary device before it was a cinematic one. There is a recurring tradition in literature, in ghost stories and horror stories of the unreliable narrator. You don’t know if you can trust the observations and perceptions of the main protagonist and you begin to question everything you’ve come to learn about them. Is this really happening or is it all just a by-product of madness and delusion? loved The Turn of the Screw, the way that novel makes you question whether or not the supernatural events are actually occurring or if the heroine is crazy. I thought it would be interesting to have a central female character in Jessica that is recovering from the effects of a nervous breakdown. This fragile- and possibly dangerous – woman is struggling to hold it all together and her slack grip on reality is loosening further. So, there’s an apparent threat that she will relapse and be totally consumed by her illness and I thought that would be a fascinating element to play with.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

WERE YOU AMBIVALENT ABOUT THE GENRE AT THIS EARLY JUNCTURE OF YOUR CAREER? John Hancock: No, I’ve always liked horror films. But I was motivated to make Jessica the kind of horror film that I wanted to see, something that spoke to my fears. I was alarmed by the notion that you can’t defuse or defeat evil – it forever lives inside and all around us – so I worked that fear into the story. I actually scared myself one night when I was writing the script and that experience was revelatory to me. I didn’t think it would ever be possible to scare myself during the act of writing and concentrating, but it did induce the shivers in me. I was writing the script at night and, at that time, I lived on the Hudson River in an old Tory place called Sneden’s Landing That house and the surrounding neighborhood had a peculiar atmosphere and the shadows always seemed very thick and threatening. The air was almost pungent with a Revolutionary War feeling and you really found it easy to believe that ghosts were wandering around that area at night. It was perfect, as I found that unnerving atmosphere assisted in getting me into the proper frame of mind to create a horror movie.

ONE OF THE FILM’S MOST REMARKABLE MOMENTS OCCURS WHEN EMILY SINKS BENEATH THE LAKE IN A CONTEMPORARY BATHING COSTUME ONLY TO SULLENLY RE-EMERGE IN A SODDEN 19TH-CENTURY WEDDING DRESS. John Hancock: God, I don’t know where that idea came from. I do know that over the years a lot of people have told me they find that scene incredibly unsettling. That image just came to me suddenly one night as I was writing. Actually, that was the same night I told you about earlier when I got scared working on the script. It was that very sequence, and the one that directly follows it where Jessica runs inside the house, barricades herself in the bedroom and hears the voices whispering to her in the darkness…. But the sight of Emily rising out of the water as this dripping apparition in a wedding dress seemed a disturbing one to me for some reason. It’s just so unexpected and weird and potent. I immediately knew it would be very scary if I executed it right

DO YOU RECALL ANYTHING ELSE ABOUT SHOOTING THAT SEQUENCE? John Hancock: I can distinctly remember feeling glad that I was safely on the shore with the camera shooting Mariclare Costello emerging from the lake. I’d spent a lot of time filming with the actors in the cold November water and, frankly. I was thankful to be out of there! We also had to realize this creature that Jessica sees moving below the surface – and this was before animatronics and mechanical effects were common tools. We didn’t have the time or money to do anything complex. So, the morning before we shot that stuff, Charlie Moss and I worked this thing out in the swimming pool at our motel using a dummy with cement blocks at the bottom attached to various pulleys. We used the buoyancy of the puppet, pulling it up and down, and allowed the movement of the water to emphasise the swirling motion of the hair and the dress It was strangely disturbing to behold, actually.

ONE OF THE MOST QUIETLY DEVASTATING THINGS IN THE FILM IS THE USE OF WHISPERING VOICES ON THE SOUNDTRACK. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THAT? John Hancock: I first had the idea for the whispering voices that Jessica hears when I was writing the script, but that approach became far more elaborate during post-production. Since this brittle woman has only just been released from an asylum, I felt there was always the possibility that she might hear voices that this veiled matiness could somehow be roused by her surroundings and the people she meets. Of course, it may all be happening to Jessica for real and this evil entity is indeed out to get her. The auditory elements helped to embellish that uncertainty. So, the whisperings and mutterings on the soundtrack gradually evolved and got thicker and denser. They became this cacophony that is always questioning and disturbing and pleading with Jessica. I can remember sitting down and writing dialogue for the voices whilst we were in the editing room cutting the film. I had to figure out exactly what they were going to say, when they should speak and how they could contribute to the character and the narrative. It was important that the voices gave the ambiguous impression that this woman may be losing her sanity again.

SOME OBSERVERS HAVE COMMENTED IN RETROSPECT THAT JESSICA SERVES AS AN ELEGY FOR THE “BITTER DISAPPOINTMENTS OF THE LOVE GENERATION.” IS THAT HOW YOU READ IT? John Hancock: I was a little too old to be a hippie. Well, I was a hippie in a way, I guess, but maybe I considered myself to be something of an observer rather than an active participant in the whole Love thing…. I knew a lot of hippies back then and I can remember thinking. This is all just a tad. It will eventually pass and be replaced by Cynicism, Suspicion and despair. Just you wait and see!” And that pretty much came to pass throughout the 1970s. … You could already feel that negativity brewing when we were making Jessica, that things weren’t working out the way some of us had hoped and dreamed they would. There was Vietnam, all the civil unrest, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, and the dream was over. So, was certainly aware that the ideals of the Love Generation were perishing. Maybe that was the significance of Jessica and her friends riding around in a hearse with the word “Love” painted on it. It may have symbolized that those hippie values were now dying or dead. But there was also something weirdly cosmic to me about the contrast present in that image, which spoke to the eternal mysteries of life and death.

FILMED WITHOUT A DISTRIBUTOR, JESSICA WAS THEN PICKED UP BY PARAMOUNT. John Hancock: Yeah, and Paramount demonstrated great faith in the film. They gave it a wide release – just a sensational release. That title, Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, was Paramount’s title as we originally simply called it Jessica Frank Yablans, who was running Paramount at that point, came in with his team and gave the movie a more commercial-sounding title. I think the studio was right to do that as they really knew how to sell it. They knew how to generate the right heat and it was fascinating to observe them working to create the moody ad campaign for my movie. They did a great poster for it and wanted to emphasize certain aspects more prominently. It was like, “Okay, this is a horror film, so let’s make that fact clear to the audience. Let’s not be hesitant about this. Let’s eagerly embrace it and see how they respond.”

AND HOW DID AUDIENCES RESPOND? John Hancock: When the picture was first screened at The Criterion, they used all the old kind of ballyhoo: outside the theatre they had a horse-drawn hearse and coffins, and really created this wonderful, celebratory atmosphere. That energy was then carried inside the theatre when the audience sat down to watch the movie and they really had a great time with it. Seeing the picture play as well as it did that night was terrific. It was a packed house with the most vocal crowd I’ve ever been a part of They were about 70 percent black and were constantly yelling at the screen. … It’s obvious that Jessica is a cult film as it touches the hearts and minds of a certain kind of horror movie fan, for somebody who prefers their horror films to be a little more patient and profound -horror that has some emotional resonance and psychological truth to it. But I’m always surprised and delighted by the various reactions to Jessica and the different kinds of people it seems to attract…. A screening was recently organized in Chicago and there was one guy there that actually had his teeth filed to points so that he looked like a vampire. Naturally, he just loved the movie!

LASTLY, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT RUMORS OF A REMAKE? John Hancock: I’m not surprised there was talk of a remake. Nothing surprises me in this business anymore. There are so many remakes now it shows you the dearth of good ideas in Hollywood as studios just want to plunder their own past. I’d heard – and maybe this was ten years ago – that Robert Evans was making another picture using the same title. I don’t believe he was planning on doing a faithful remake with the same story and characters, but Let’s Scare Jessica to Death is clearly a good title. It’s a cult film so I imagine the attention would be somewhat modest. But it’s such a vivid title it would probably reawaken interest in my movie. I must confess, though, was delighted when Evans project didn’t happen. I mean, Jessica has aged so beautifully I liken the film to a fine wine: it’s actually gotten better in the barrel as the years have gone by.

youtube

CONCLUSION/RELEASE/DISTRIBUTION The Let’s Scare Jessica to Death shoot ran about 24-25 days, with a budget around $1 million. Filmed without a distributor, Jessica was picked up by Paramount Pictures as the previously moribund studio was starting to come back strong with Love Story, with a subsequent string of blockbusters like The Godfather to come. Former Paramount advertising executive Charles Glenn recalls, “I remember them bringing in the picture, we saw it and I liked it a lot. I felt it was extraordinarily scary. There was something raw about it that for me added to the suspense.

Hancock was incredibly pleased that Jessica was picked up by a major, and he felt the studio did a great job promoting the film. “They did a wonderful campaign, a wonderful poster, and they had a lot of the old ballyhoo outside the theater when they screened it, with a horse-drawn hearse and coffins. Paramount picking it up and that kind of major release was more than I could have hoped for.”

The studio also coined the movie’s final title; Hancock recalls that it had just been called Jessica, while Glenn remembers that it was then called The Satanists. The director confirms that the moniker change was Paramount’s idea, “and boy, were they right.” An advertising firm that worked with Paramount sent in a list of possible titles, and Let’s Scare Jessica to Death immediately leaped out at Glenn. Paramount wanted to change the title “to something more intimate, as though we were doing it, or someone could do it or someone has done it to you,” Glenn explains. “Like when you were a kid, ‘Let’s scare Mary when she comes around the corner.’ It was absolutely more in keeping with the screenplay and the arc of the picture. The title itself helped put it into the marketplace. It made the movie appealing to exhibitors.”

Yet with Let’s Scare Jessica to Death having strayed far from its initial comedic origins, Kalcheim was not thrilled with the finished product. “Honestly, when I saw it, I wasn’t crazy about it,” he says. “I took my name off and put my father’s name [Norman Jonas] on.” If the film had remained a comedy, “I believe it would have worked well. Obviously back in 1971 I didn’t like it much, but it seems to have improved with age. I saw it recently with my kids and some of it holds up very well. John (who also took a pseudonym, Ralph Rose, for his writing credit) created a real mood. It had a very good cast. I knew Zohra Lampert from Second City, and she was a terrific actress.”

Let’s Scare Jessica to Death ultimately turned out to be a modest success for Paramount, and everyone involved was pleased with the film and the experience of making it. Hancock went on to direct the sports drama Bang the Drum Slowly, which featured a breakthrough role for Robert De Niro, for Paramount, yet he says, “My father liked Jessica better!”

CAST/CREW Directed John Hancock Produced Charles B. Moss Jr. William Badalato Written John Hancock Lee Kalcheim

Starring Zohra Lampert Barton Heyman Kevin O’Connor Gretchen Corbett Mariclare Costello

Music Orville Stoeber

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Fangoria#241 Fangoria#334 Rue Morgue#173

Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971) Retrospective SUMMARY Jessica (Zohra Lampert) has been released from a mental institution to the care of her husband, Duncan (Barton Heyman), who has given up his job as string bassist for the New York Philharmonic and purchased a rundown farmhouse on an island in upstate New York.

#70sFilms

0 notes