What helps “Let’s Scare Jessica to Death” pave the way as a genuine horror film, is that it’s more content with examining the pure madness of the human mind than it does splashing blood on the walls. Which is not to say there isn’t blood, but the madness of the entire premise is perfectly exemplified thanks to the often desolate set pieces before us. The farm house in which our characters reside, the small town down the road, and even the lake, are all spots that are perfectly maddening and morbid to the story.
Hancock nails the pure dementia of the situation with scenic settings that feel utterly claustrophobic at all times. And worst of all, once the mysterious drifter in their house corrupts their lives, things take a turn for the worse. Hancock successfully will bring audiences to constantly question Jessica’s perceptions, as opposed to our own and always leaves us at odds. Whose eyes should we believe, our own or Jessica’s? “Let’s Scare Jessica to Death” can be tedious.
Not just tedious but glacial. There are pacing problems from the beginning, which attributes to the sluggish storytelling in “Let’s Scare…” Sometimes the film is competent enough with spine-tingling moments, but then it just completely slows down and we are just too focused on the relationships between these characters to focus on forward motion for Jessica and her notion that something is trying to get her. Hancock breaks the conventions of the vampire character, including the way they breed and mark are much different, and they often represent ghosts than actual conscious beings.
And this helps the attempt to confuse the audience just as much as Jessica is. Reality or Fantasy, Dreams or Nightmares, as Jessica states, she’ll never know. And we’ll never know, either. We can debate all we want, but at the end of the day, this film will surely have you talking about what was the possible conclusion. When a movie can keep you guessing after it’s over, it’s succeeded in spite of its shortcomings.