JasparLamarCrabb Review of Let's Scare Jessica to Death

Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971)

Lets bore the audience to death...

[2/10 · 3 February 2013]

Creepy perhaps but no real scares are to be had in director John D. Hancock's film. Neurotic Zohra Lampert is released from a mental hospital and takes up residence in an old manor house (where, of course, some untoward shenanigans took place). She starts hearing voices, seeing ghosts and a rather insistent dead woman in a lake. Lampert is fine and Mariclare Costello is terrific as Emily, who's not really as nice as she seems. Hancock's direction is OK, but he doesn't seem to realize that he's making a horror movie; the film is so inert it's boring. There are odd touches here and there (Lampert's mode of transportation is a hearse) and some fine production values, but they're all for naught. Without scares, it's hard to recommend a supposed horror film.