Jacob's Ladder has attained cult status and rightly so- this is a haunting psychological horror film with some surreal imagery and scenes which will make you distinctly squirm. Tim Robbins plays Vietnam vet who is suffering from perhaps post traumatic disorder or something else. He realizes that almost the entirety of his battalion is also going through something similar. He decides to make sense of this and get answers. As mentioned earlier the images are surreal and terrifying as is the slow descent into madness that we as audiences feel. The tone is suitably dreary with low lights, dripping rain and shadows. Go watch Jacob's Ladder to be creeped out.

"Jacobs Ladder" (1990) is a dramatic horror mystery told from the perspective of a Vietnam veteran named Jacob Singer, played by Tim Robbins, as he tries to navigate his life through the physical representation of his inner demons. This film is freakishly well put together and keeps the viewer guessing how it will conclude through all of Jacob's dissociation. He lives with his girlfriend Jezzie, played by Elizabeth Peña, who tries to help him cope with life and the loss of his son Gabe, played by Macaulay Culkin. This film practices the art of multi-story sequencing in that Jacob has several stories within his main story which I truly appreciate. It forces the viewer to pay attention so as not to miss pertinent information.For a film made in the early 90s, Adrian Lyne did a marvelous job with the pacing. Still there were some areas that dragged on or could have been omitted all together. However, I feel back then the audience needed those moments for the emotional connection to Jacob. The point of this film can be taken in more than one way, but the strongest of those is shedding light on what the U.S. government did to their own soldiers. Though the payoff was very expected, due to the trailer, it was still sadly fulfilling. This film was on my bucket list for a long time and now having viewed it, I am happy I did. I recommend this film to all who enjoy films that have a purpose and force you to think but skip the trailer.

This is simply one of the best films hardly anyone ever saw (OK - it's got 80+ thousand votes on IMDb - but I'm still amazed that it's not 3 times that number). Amazing script, acting, story, visuals; it makes you wonder why Adrian Lyne didn't make more films of that caliber. Don't get frustrated if you don't understand the film at first. It DOES make sense, but it usually takes repeat viewings to figure this one out. 9 stars out of 10.In case you're interested in more underrated masterpieces, here's some of my favorites:imdb.com/list/ls070242495

Few supernatural horror films tap into the abstract realm of the unconscious quite as effectively as Adrian Lyne's Jacob's Ladder. There's a select group out there who have done it as well (Tarsem Singh with The Cell, Hellraiser and Silent Hill come to mind), but there's just such an abundance of generic, or 'vanilla' horror out there. It's not that that kind of stuff isn't great, I just like to see something strive for a little more, stylistically speaking, go for something truly elemental and out of the box in its attempts to elicit fright. This one engraves nightmares of an inexplicable variety into your perception, images and sounds made all the more disturbing by the fact that we never really know what is going on with our protagonist, a Viet Nam vet named Jacob (Tim Robbins), a decent dude with a sketchy past who spends his days as a postal worker in NYC. Jacob is plagued by waking nightmares, visions of demons, confusing allusions to his past and a son (a pre Home Alone Macauley Culkin) who may have died, or never existed at all, all combined with a general sense of dread that almost seems to crawl out of the screen and choke the viewer. Jacob is dating a co worker (RIP Elizabeth Pena), who isn't equipped to deal with whatever is going on with him, and his only friend seems to be his doting chiropractor Louis, played by an excellent Danny Aiello in a performance that is a ray of kindness and light in an otherwise ice cold atmospheric palette. Jacob begins to suspect that he and his platoon may have been victims of illegal weapons gas testing, and are now suffering the psychological fallout, or perhaps that his plight goes much deeper than that. It's a disorienting state of mind for him, and in turn puts the viewer in a similar daze of eeriness and uncertainty, with not a concrete clue or answer in sight until the film reaches its devastating final moments. Ving Rhames, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Eriq La Salle and Matt Craven are just as haunted as his fellow Nam buddies, Jason Alexander has an energetic bit as a lawyer, and watch for Kyle Gass, Orson Bean and Lewis Black in early smaller roles. This film has put a hazy emotional and visual filter over my perception for years, and each time I give it another visit I get goosebumps from the horrors within, especially on a crisp recent blu Ray. There's one sequence in particular which I won't spoil with details, except to say it should be front and centre on the demo reel for the entire horror genre in cinema, a harrowing journey into a hellishly creative interzone of undefinable fear that still serves as the blueprint for some of my bad dreams to this day. A fright flick classic.