Jacob’s Ladder, a
psychological horror film that came out in 1990, scored a respectable 70% on
Rotten Tomatoes, but grossed a dismal $26 million domestically. It has achieved
far greater success, however, in the years since its release. Since 1990, Jacob’s Ladder has developed a cult
following, spurred by a DVD release in 1998 and a Blu-ray release in 2004. The Hollywood Reporter announced Friday
that the studio LD Entertainment has agreed to finance a remake of the film.
Jacob’s Ladder is
now seen as one of the most influential thrillers in recent memory.
Specifically, it has been cited as a direct influence on The Sixth Sense and on the Silent
Hill videogame series and Christophe Gans’ Silent Hill film. Ryan Murphy, the “American Horror Story: Asylum” co-creator
and showrunner, has also stated that Jacob’s
Ladder inspired parts of his hit horror miniseries.
The original Jacob’s
Ladder was directed by Adrian Lyne (Flashdance,
Fatal Attraction) and starred Tim
Robbins (The Shawshank Redemption, Mystic River) as Jacob Singer, a Vietnam
vet with severe PTSD. Jacob’s mental illness causes him to experience vivid and
increasingly horrific, violent hallucinations. The film jumps back and forth in
time and setting, switching from Jacob’s tour in Vietnam to his life before and
after he returns home. The film ends in an unforeseeable plot twist, an element
that fans often refer to as the movie’s main attraction.
The new Jacob’s Ladder
is being written by Jeff Buhler (The Midnight
Meat Train)—who is working from an earlier draft by Jake Wade Wall (writer
of the 2006 When a Stranger Calls remake).
It is unclear at this point how Buhler will handle the twist ending,
considering that any audience member who has seen the original will know what’s
coming. Producers Michael Gaeta and Alison Rosenzweig have explained that their
Jacob’s Ladder film will be more of
an homage than a direct remake, and that the update will be set in current
times and feature new characters. Which elements of Lyne’s movie will be left
intact remains to be seen. It seems likely that the new film will make Jacob a
veteran who suffers from PTSD-caused hallucinations, as in the original, but
that the war in which he fought will be updated to Iraq or Afghanistan, rather
than Vietnam.
Gaeta and Rosenzweig have previous experience bringing older
horror films into the 21st century. The pair worked (as executive
producer and producer, respectively) on 2011’s Fright Night, a remake of Tom Holland’s 1985 vampire flick. The
2011 flop, which starred Colin Farrell, grossed just $37 million worldwide. A
direct-to-video sequel, Fright Night 2,
is expected to be out later this year, indicating that Gaeta and Rosenzweig
aren’t being blacklisted in the industry despite the film’s poor performance. Though
the Fright Night remake was seen as
artistically and critically unequal to the 1985 film, Farrell was praised for
his performance.
The producing pair, who are currently searching for a
director for Jacob’s Ladder, are also
in the process of developing yet another horror remake about a veteran with
PTSD. This project will be an updated version of Alan Parker’s 1987 film Angel Heart. Unlike Jacob’s Ladder, however, Angel
Heart is told not from a soldier’s point of view, but through the eyes of a
detective (Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler,
Iron Man 2) who is searching for him.
Audiences may eventually become fatigued by the fad of dark
protagonists dealing with the fallout from war—the trend even made its way into
Tony Stark’s latest outing, Iron Man 3.
With the box office dominated by remakes and sequels, however, it’s a sure
thing that studios will continue to churn out updates on older films and
concepts, even after it appears the trope has overstayed its welcome.
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