Jacob's Ladder (1990)

The case for Jacob's Ladder being a Christmas movie is a weak one, no matter how you cut it. But it's also a weird case, which makes me more interested than I'd otherwise be in a movie where holiday credentials are relatively ephemeral. In the past, I've argued any movie where half or more is set around the holidays should be considered holiday media, even if visual reminders or references to the season are scant or intentionally obscured. In the case of Jacob's Ladder, the majority of the movie is set during this period. And also it isn't. That contradiction is quite literally built into the framework of the movie, though whether its (extremely loose) holiday connections are meaningful or trivial is less clear.

In a moment, I'll try and provide at least a little context for all this, but - considering this movie has some passionate fans - I feel like I should at least give anyone who hasn't seen this a chance to jump ship before I spoil the film's surprises. Though, for what it's worth, I don't count myself among the fans this time.

That's not to say I think it's a bad movie, so much as I found the experience of watching it a bit underwhelming. A lot of that comes down to factors outside the film's control: I'm viewing this (for the first time, I'll add) thirty-five years after its release, and in that time the media landscape has transformed significantly. Some of that transformation is due to the influence Jacob's Ladder had on horror, both visually and (perhaps) structurally. Some of the story stuff I'll be spoiling seems to have influenced... well, let's just say it might have influenced some stuff I'm very familiar with. As such, I'm approaching this from a very different point-of-view than someone seeing it in 1990, even before you consider proximity to the Vietnam War, the after effects of which are major components of what Jacob's Ladder is attempting to explore.

Even more than that, I found myself kept at arm's length by the tone, which... okay, here's the thing. Horror was in a very different place in 1990 than it is now. Essentially, it was being pulled in two directions: one side of the genre consisted of campy, silly comedy/horror largely dismissed by critics, while the other side was serious, psychological drama/horror that was more respected. I'm sure this is an oversimplification, but I think a good rule of thumb is if you wanted to be taken seriously as horror (or horror adjacent) you wanted to steer away from over-the-top expressionist elements and towards grounded realism as your default tone.

The problem, for me at least, is that a premise like that of Jacob's Ladder gets boring when it's restrained. I wanted an otherworldly eeriness permeating the film, and instead I got a fairly straightforward drama occasionally veering in surreal directions before ultimately confirming some variation of the thing I'd been assuming was going on since the start was, in fact, what was driving the whole movie.

That's not because I'm smarter than audiences in 1990, mind you - it's because I've seen The Sixth Sense. Look, we're like four paragraphs past the spoiler warning, so you've only got yourself to blame. Also, The Sixth Sense isn't even an accurate comparison: Jacob's Ladder is structured differently, and the ending is intended to have a very different effect on the viewer. I'm not even completely certain it's supposed to land as a twist. But fair or not, viewers in 2025 (myself included) make very different assumptions when movies open with a main character being horribly wounded than those in 1990.

Also, Jacob isn't technically dead until the end of the movie; he's dying and hallucinating. Which brings me back to my thoughts on tone and style: the fact all of that, no matter how objectively weird, plays out in a fairly mundane fashion makes for a less compelling experience, particularly if you're pretty much assuming everything happening is some shade of "hallucination and/or divine and/or demonic revelation" from the get go. Which, in keeping with the movie's religious title, is absolutely the case.

But it's also about the unethical and illegal testing of psychedelic drugs which may or may not (according to the closing notes) have been conducted by the US government during the war. And which also may or may not have occurred narratively in the movie. One of the odder side effects of having everything the character experiences be a hallucination (including a few sequences in what are essentially parallel universes) is that anything significant that occurred in the narrative is called into question. If Jacob never left Vietnam, then he never learned he was drugged, which calls into question whether that happened at all.

Or maybe it did. The circumstances behind the attack were still... odd, so that's as good an explanation as any. And, as far as his emotional journey letting go of his pain is concerned, it's ultimately irrelevant whether he's receiving revelations of what happened or is simply experiencing weird dreams. This is the spiritual story of a man coming to terms with loss, grief, love, and death: the rest is meant to be symbolic.

So, does this take place around Christmas? Well, technically no (or at least not that we're shown), as it all plays out over a couple days during the war. So really we're talking about Jacob's hallucinations, which occur...

Oh God, this is complicated.

These are sort of occurring during the holidays, based on two brief sequences. Fairly early on, we learn that his doctor died a month before the events we're shown, and further that this was just before Thanksgiving. That would place the present somewhere right around Christmas. A few weeks (or months) pass, and towards the end of the movie Jacob is thrown out of a moving car. As he lies helpless in a gutter, a Salvation Army Santa Claus (minus the branding) robs him. So still around Christmas.

Does this timeline work? No, but also yes, because none of it's real anyway.

Oh, there's also a party in the middle of the movie. Maybe that's a Christmas or New Year's Party. Maybe not. No real indication either way, save that'd it be weird to have a big party in late December that wasn't nominally connected to the holidays in some shape or form. He collapses in the party, incidentally, and winds up with a dangerously high fever, during which he either hallucinates or awakens in a life he's still with his wife and his son is still alive (did I... was I supposed to mention his backstory?). At any rate, he mentions a Christmas Party to his wife when he tells her that he's with someone she met in the past. So... maybe that's relevant.

Or not. You'd think if the holiday connections were intended to be significant there'd be decorations or music throughout to maintain the setting. Instead, they just poke up a few times. Maybe they were originally more consistent in the script but were largely abandoned during production, with a handful of references surviving the process. That certainly seems to fit the final product.

It's not hard to see why you might want them in a movie like this. First, there's a persistent sense you're seeing a sort of ghost story, between the occasional demon attacks and Jacob's own periodic uncertainty of whether he's living or dead. More specifically, the visions Jacob's experiencing echo aspects of A Christmas Carol, both in the way past, present, and future intermingle and in the ambiguity around whether those showing him these visuals are helping or tormenting him (this is spelled out towards the end when the idea that a demon burning away memories could be an angel helping someone let go of their past from another perspective). That sounds a lot like what happened to Ebenezer Scrooge to me.

This is also tied into themes of reflection commonly associated with New Year's, which could have reinforced the story here. Likewise, Jacob is at a sort of crossroads in the movie, trying to reconcile his feelings for his estranged wife and surviving children with his feelings for his girlfriend (whose name is literally Jezebel, though she goes by Jezzie), as well as the tension between his training in philosophy and the pain thinking brings him. Again, more opportunity for reflection and forking paths.

Connections to religion may also play into the holiday elements, though it's worth noting the movie has more in common with Judaism than Christianity (screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin was born Jewish and spent time exploring Eastern religions). There's a great deal to explore around this movie's religious aspects (starting with its title and premise mirroring the story of the same name from Genesis), but Christ allegories probably aren't the place to look.

Mind you, all of this is, like the movie's narrative, an example of speculation bordering on a mirage. None of that makes it into the movie, because Christmas seems have been almost entirely excised by director Adrian Lyne. I have no idea if he thought the visuals would be too gaudy, or perhaps if the filming schedule didn't line up (most of the movie is set in New York, where holiday decorations are readily apparent in December and prohibitively expensive the rest of the year). Ultimately, it's surprising they opted to leave in the sidewalk Santa bit: I assume they just found it too amusing to cut. Besides, it's not like it opens any real contradictions, as the entire timeline is canonically an illusion. However it highlights the unusual nature of this film, which isn't really a Christmas movie (at least not in terms of what's on screen) but seems to have been made using a Christmas movie script. The opposite is far more common.

But that's all academic. What matters, of course, is whether the movie's worth seeing, and... I'm probably the wrong person to ask. Like I said before, this has diehard fans who adore it, and I can see why. There are some phenomenal visual sequences in this movie and equally phenomenal performances. In addition to Tim Robbins (who plays Jacob), this features minor roles from Danny Aiello, Jason Alexander, Ving Rhames, Lewis Black, and - in case this didn't have enough Christmas cred - Macaulay Culkin as the memory of Jacob's son. I also thought Elizabeth Peña gave an interesting performance in the bizarre, intentionally contradictory role of Jezebel.

I wish I enjoyed the film as a whole more. I appreciate what it's going for, and I can see why it's become celebrated, but between my issues with the style and the distance between myself and the subject matter, I couldn't connect fully. This is absolutely a case where your mileage could vary, though.