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Jakob's Wife
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| Year: |
2021
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Director: |
Travis Stevens
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| Stars: |
Barbara Crampton, Larry Fessenden, Bonnie Aarons, Nyisha Bell, Sarah Lind, Mark Kelly, Robert Rusler, Jay DeVon Johnson, C.M. Punk, Omar Salazar, Angelie Simone, Ned Yousef, Giovannie Cruz, Armani Desirae, Monica L. Henry, Skeeta Jenkins
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| Genre: |
Horror |
| Rating: |
  7 (from 1 vote) |
| Review: |
Anne Fedder (Barbara Crampton) is married to the local pastor, Jakob (Larry Fessenden), in this small town, and has been obedient, some would say meek, in her wifely duties ever since they were wed. She cooks, cleans, gardens, all the domestic chores that tradition says she has to, and she has never let out a peep of protest in all these years. Now she is in late middle age, she has her quiet twilight years to look forward to, she is not planning anything major to live out her life with, simply settled with Jakob with her role to play.
But then one day, one of the younger members of the congregation goes missing on her walk home after church, and Anne is contacted by an old boyfriend from school, seeking to catch up with her if she has the time... These two events are connected, or they will be, and Anne is what connects them in this horror about self-actualisation where the act of becoming - wait for it - a vampire will be the trigger the protagonist needs to break out of her routine and out of the shadow of not only her husband, but everyone else in her existence too. However, she has to ponder if this is what she really wants, really needs, to attain a level of contentment, or whether she was always destined to be the stay-at-home type.
Don't worry if that sounded a tad dry, as there was nothing dry about the geysers of blood she and the other vampires set off in their search for sustenance, and there was a keenly applied sense of humour, indeed, a sense of the absurd, in what was happening to Anne. Barbara Crampton had enjoyed an intriguing career, starting out as an eighties scream queen, best known for Re-Animator, then dialling back her work duties to raise a family, then finding people were going, "Whatever happened to Barbara Crampton?" and realising fans truly enjoyed seeing her, as a link from the past of horror to the present, where she was the face of indie shockers and chillers aplenty.
She appeared to relish this stateswoman status, especially when it meant as a performer she could still take leading roles in movies at an age when Hollywood would be telling starlets trying to sustain a career into middle-age that they should basically forget it. What Crampton was lucky to have was the talent to carry movies like Jakob's Wife, and the ability to be endlessly watchable on the screen; here was a project she had been nurturing for many years, and she made it happen. Was it worth it? On the whole, yes, it was very entertaining in its tonal shifts from creepy slow burn to over the top gorefest, almost an out and out comedy. Also worth noting was Fessenden was the titular Jakob, not playing his usual wild and wacky character but remaining at the heart of the indie horrors he had made his trademark, either as director or performer.
It was intriguing to see these two stars squaring up to each other as Jakob initially has to take in that his wife was considering an affair, and that might have been preferable to ending up as a bloodsucker considering her husband was a religious and upstanding member of the community. But always it comes down to Anne realising her potential, and how she is beginning to blossom despite the hindrances a thirst for the red stuff can provide: early on, we see her dancing around her living room to electro-goth rock and perceive the eighties girl she used to be, both as a cult actress and as a character, and wonder where the time went and whether it is possible to revitalise that youthful promise even at this stage. With indications Crampton remained fearless (one Larry Fessenden sex scene coming up!), this was as much an endorsement of her female contemporaries as it was Barbara herself. Music by Tara Busch.
[Jakob's Wife - Premieres 19 August 2021 **A Shudder Exclusive Film.]
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| Reviewer: |
Graeme Clark
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