JESSABELLE (2014)

Studio:       Lionsgate
Director:    Kevin Greutert
Writer:       Robert Ben Garant
Producer:  Jason Blum, Paul Young, Peter Principato
Stars:     Sarah Snook, Mark Webber, David Andrews, Joelle Carter, Ana de la Reguera, Larisa Oleynik, Chris Ellis, Fran Bennett, Amber Stevens

Review Score:

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Summary:

Forced to return to her childhood home following a devastating accident, a young woman unravels a mystery that has haunted her family since birth.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Pregnant, Jessabelle Laurent prepares to move in with her boyfriend Mark. While driving away from Jessie’s previous apartment, their vehicle is sideswiped. Mark is killed and Jessie loses her baby.

Two Months Later – Confined to a wheelchair and still undergoing physical therapy, Jessie is forced to recuperate in the home of her estranged father Leon in the Feliciana Parish of St. Francis, Louisiana. For his daughter’s use, Leon reopens the previously blocked ground floor bedroom that belonged to Jessie’s mother Kate, since Jessie is unable to go up stairs.

Jessie begins having a recurring nightmare of a dead woman trying to kill her and a burned man leering at her accusingly. She also has waking visions of a woman in a wheelchair. Underneath her mother’s bed, Jessie finds a box containing videotapes labeled with her name.

Jessie watches the first tape, dated March 14, 1988. In it, a terminally ill Kate addresses her daughter with the intention of Jessabelle seeing it on her eighteenth birthday. Seven months pregnant at the time, Kate does a tarot card reading for her unborn baby’s future. Although she makes a number of incorrect predictions about Jessie’s life, she warns that a possessive female presence wants her out of the house in the present. Leon finds Jessie watching the tape, prompting him to destroy the videocassette out of anger before dumping Jessie’s wheelchair in the lake outside.

Jessie starts using her mother’s old wheelchair. After her father leaves the house, Jessie watches the second tape, dated April 5, 1988. In it, Kate mentions asking her friend Moses about the previous reading. Kate theorizes that both presences envisioned in the house are actually two forms of Jessabelle, with one representing an inner demon. Kate performs a second tarot card reading that foretells a horrible death.

Physical therapist Rosaura arrives at the house for a session. While Jessie is left alone to soak in the tub, a ghostly vision appears and attacks her. Leon rescues Jessie from the apparent hallucination. Suspicious, Leon finds two other videotapes hidden in Jessie’s room. Leon warns that Jessie’s mother had cancerous tumors warping her brain before she died. He then prepares to burn the tapes in a metal drum out back. However, Leon accidentally sets himself on fire and burns to death when he becomes trapped in the shed as it is engulfed in flames.

At Leon’s funeral, Jessie reconnects with her high school boyfriend Preston. Preston takes Jessie home and the following morning, she tells him about her recurring nightmare. Preston digs the tapes out of the drum outside for Jessie, but after watching them with her, he advises Jessie not to heed their predictions as fact.

Jessie watches a tape covering July 1986 through December 1987 that depicts her parents as a happy couple. She then watches a third tape from Kate foretelling that Jessabelle is already dead. Jessie sees fires burning in the bayou swamp across the lake where she previously saw reflecting lights throughout the day. Paranormal activity occurs throughout the house, culminating in the shattering of a hallway mirror, which reveals an unlabeled videocassette hidden in the wall. Jessie refuses to watch it.

Preston pays Jessie a visit. The two of them take a motorboat across the lake to investigate the flashing lights in the distance. They find evidence of a voodoo ceremony around a gravestone marked “Jessabelle” with a date of June 12, 1988, the same date as Jessie’s birthday. Confused, Jessie has Preston dig up the grave and they find an infant’s skeleton, which they turn over to Sheriff Pruitt for DNA testing.

Afraid to let Jessie stay in her family’s home, Preston has Jessie sleep on his couch, which angers his wife Sam. In the morning, Preston takes Jessie to see Abigail Davis, her parents’ former cook. In a trance of dementia, Mrs. Davis cryptically speaks in Haitian about possession and transference.

Preston and Jessie next look for her mother’s old church as they search for Kate’s friend Moses. They locate a voodoo shrine with a fresh goat sacrifice and a picture indicating that Moses died on June 12, 1988. A group of unknown men suddenly attacks Preston, but they allow him to leave with Jessie.

Preston takes Jessie back to her house to gather her belongings before taking her to his mother’s for safety. Jessie retrieves her mother’s tarot card deck. Preston comes inside to get Jessie, but when he brings her back to the car, she turns into the woman from Jessie’s nightmare and attacks. The real Jessie comes outside to find Preston in shock and calls the sheriff. Preston is taken away in an ambulance. Sheriff Pruitt tells Jessie that police have not yet identified the infant skeleton’s identity, but they have concluded that the baby was murdered.

Sheriff Pruitt calls back later to tell Jessie that Preston regained consciousness. He also informs her that the DNA results came back and indicated that the infant was black. Jessie assumes that the child must have been her half sister. The sheriff mentions a discrepancy between the DNA samples of Jessie and Leon, but static corrupts the call’s audio.

The television turns on by itself. Jessie finally watches the tape found inside the wall. The tape shows Kate seemingly preparing to kill a baby, but she shoots herself instead.

Kate’s ghost appears in the room with Jessie. Jessie pieces together that Kate had an affair with Moses and the baby was actually his. When the black child was born, thus revealing Kate’s infidelity, Leon burned Moses to death and drowned Jessabelle in the lake. Moses’ voodoo church later honored the child with a burial and rituals of remembrance. Kate killed herself while Leon adopted Jessie to substitute for Jessabelle and cover up his crimes. Kate actually made the tapes for Jessabelle, not for Jessie.

Moses appears alongside Kate. Together, they bind Jessie to her wheelchair. Kate begins wheeling Jessie out across the pier. Preston arrives at the house with Sheriff Pruitt but sees only Jessie wheeling herself towards the water. Jessie goes into the lake and sinks. Underwater, Jessabelle swims to Jessie, removes Kate’s bracelet from Jessie’s wrist, and places it on her own. Jessabelle then swims up and resurfaces in Jessie’s body.

Preston recovers Jessie and brings her into the house. Jessie gives Preston a kiss and refers to him as her love. When the sheriff asks if Jessie is okay, she insists that he call her Jessabelle.

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Review:

After losing her unborn baby, her boyfriend, and her ability to walk, Jessie’s post-accident road to recovery takes another dark turn when she is forced to return to her childhood home for recuperation.  Jessie’s estranged father unseals the bedroom belonging to the mother she never knew, and Jessie begins unraveling a family mystery haunting her mind as well as the house.

Jessie spies a box of videocassettes with her name on the lid tucked away under the bed.  Terminally ill at the time of her pregnancy, Jessie’s mother Kate recorded the tapes for an adult daughter she would never be able to meet.  Separated by a screen and 26 years, Kate speaks to Jessie almost as if they are of the same time and in the same room.  Jessie could not be happier at the unexpected pleasure of seeing her mother for the very first time.  That joy turns to horror when mom uses their unlikely bonding time for a tarot card reading.

Jessie already has a recurring nightmare of a burned man and a woman intent on killing her.  Days are spent dodging ghostly visions of a woman stalking the shadows.  Then there is the matter of ritual fires burning in the trees across the Louisiana lake outside.  Now her deceased mother is predicting through the television that a vengeful presence wants Jessie out of the house, and it may be because she is already supposed to be dead.

As I type this review, “Jessabelle” currently scrapes the bottom of Metacritic with an aggregate score of 36 while tumbling lower still on Rotten Tomatoes with a lowly 24% fresh rating.  Since dissenters are fond of saying the same to me when an opinion disagrees, I’m here to contend that critics panning this film are dead wrong in their reasoning.  “Jessabelle” is a terrific terror tale and an intriguingly satisfying thriller.

One prominent publication asserts that the film is “rote.”  That might be true of the scares, which are predominantly of the cheap jump variety, but no adjective could be further from fact in describing the story.  Anyone leveling accusations of predictability or laying claim to having everything figured out before all is revealed is flat out full of it.

While “Jessabelle” plays fair with its clues, its multilayered plot mix of voodoo hoodoo, paranormal activity, and traditional gothic house haunting makes for a spiraling mystery where playing super sleuth is not its own reward.  A hefty amount of content must be swallowed whole, but this isn’t the type of twisting, twisted tale challenging viewers to break the finish line tape before Jessie does.  “Jessabelle” is genuinely about its journey, not a waiting game for a payoff.

Which is for the best since admittedly, the actual “this is how it all adds up” reveal shaves its edge of satisfaction by partaking in some Scooby-Doo silliness.  Partly because multiple threads require convergence, but mostly because it isn’t sure if everyone at home followed along, “Jessabelle” bumbles its climax a bit with a blabbermouthed recap from the protagonist that would befit Fred reminding Shaggy and the gang about everything they encountered thus far.

“Jessabelle” relies heavily on fairly routine jolts and tropes like sudden mirror reflections, dream sequences, and any variety of things that bellow, “boo!”  Yet each moment retains its effectiveness in spite of familiarity because they are punctuations to perfectly pitched atmosphere.  “Jessabelle” makes the most of its bayou backwoods and cobwebbed plantation locations with creative camera, sound, and production design crafted for superlative creepiness.

Sarah Snook’s unique presence resembles few other actresses.  Her combination of tomboy toughness and accessible allure creates a character of engaging depth with little to do by way of dialogue, but so much to say in every other manner.  Look for a similarly impressive performance from Snook in the equally brainteasing sci-fi thriller “Predestination” co-starring Ethan Hawke (review here).

After the disappointing VOD dump of “Mockingbird” (review here), “Jessabelle” restores confidence that even when releasing without theatrical fanfare, Blumhouse Productions remembers how to capitalize on its reliable recipe for packaging classic horror concepts in a sleek coat of cinematic appeal with sharply hooking entertainment value.  Undemanding at only 83 minutes, “Jessabelle” is a good old-fashioned alone-in-the-dark ghost story highlighted by talented performers, rich cinematography, and a screenplay built on clever surprises and tautly delivered chills.

Review Score:  85

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