Jessica: Perception, Identity and Quiet Horror

I sit here and I can't believe that it happened. And yet I have to believe it. Dreams or nightmares? Madness or sanity? I don't know which is which.

--Jessica, “Let’s Scare Jessica to Death”

“Quiet horror” is an extremely useful tool in exploring our perceptions of reality and the borders of what we rather loudly trumpet as sanity or insanity. When quiet horror is successfully combined with the hallucinatory effect of cinema, the effect on the viewer is often disconcerting. This experience, unsettling as it is, can also be revelatory, leading one to question their assumptions about the nature of reality and how we define it individually and as a species. Circumstance and context also play a part, of course. Ask a person about the difference between watching a movie alone and watching it with a group of friends. From the same raw material very different experiences can, and often do, happen. In this piece I will be using the 1971 American independent horror film Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, and my experience with it at two different stages of my life, to explore some of these ideas.

Before discussing the film, we need to assign a definition to the term “quiet horror.” I’ve seen this term used in many different contexts; broadly, we can start by saying what it is not: visceral, gory, explicit and/or focused on the violation, alteration or decaying of the physical form. It focuses instead on psychological concerns, suspense, and modes of perception. In general, it is a more personal experience of horror. You may not see that someone is struggling to hold on to their sanity; provided you have two eyes that function you can’t help but notice if their throat has been torn out. For the purposes of this piece, let’s define it as an unsettling feeling deriving from experiences that may or may not be paranormal in nature which leads to a questioning of sanity both by the protagonist and those around him/her. We will, time and again, circle around to the nature of perception.

Jessica is recovering from a nervous breakdown that led to her being institutionalized for a period of time. Her husband Duncan has purchased a house out in the country on a farm/apple orchard. Accompanied by their friend Woody, they move out to the house only to discover a drifter named Emily already living there. She offers to move on but Jessica invites her to stay for dinner. After seeing how attracted Woody is to Emily, Jessica invites her to stay indefinitely. At the same time, she begins hearing voices and has a disquieting experience where someone grabs her leg from underwater while she is swimming. A mysterious blonde girl stares at her—a blonde girl no one else sees. She keeps these experiences to herself, afraid that Duncan will think she is losing her mind again.

Is she? The film plays the question brilliantly, the experiences low-key, until a couple of stumbles at the end that muddy the proceedings a touch (which were the fault of the distributor forcing elements into the film, something that was all too common on the indie circuit in this era.) We empathize with Jessica, who is played by Zohra Lampert in a tour-de-force performance that is all the more frightening for its restraint. As the film progresses, with stranger events occurring and a backstory developing about a drowning woman who may or may not have lived at the house, our eyes never leave her. Her physical movements occur with a forced grace, entirely appropriate for one recovering from a breakdown. Duncan, Woody and Emily are malevolent characters, but the movie refuses to reveal whether that is solely because Jessica perceives them that way or whether they do, indeed, intend her harm. Either way, Jessica’s conception of reality is challenged at every step of the way. The film is suffused with an emotional and sexual tension that simmers beneath every ambiguous word and look.

I first encountered this film around the age of 6 or 7 on afternoon TV (the lack of graphic violence made Jessica an afternoon TV staple in the late seventies.) Too young to understand any of the subtext and most of the complexity, I was instead very frightened by the idea that one could lose their mind—or, worse, that the world around them was something other than it appeared to be. Around the same time I recall watching footage of the Jonestown massacre, which I consider my first experience with “evil” as a concept. Both experiences affected me deeply, and along with viewings of Night Gallery, In Search Of… and the film Burnt Offerings, likely put me on the path towards the horror/weird genre in literature and cinema that has been a staple of my life (creatively and as a fan) since. Jessica was the first time I became aware of identity as a concept. The naturalistic tone of Jessica, with its soft diffused lighting and frequent scenes in daylight (unlike most “horror” movies, this one rarely takes place in the dark) make the fragility of Jessica and the crumbling of her mental state more real than cinema normally allows. It got under my skin and scared me in a way I could barely understand, yet fascinated me as well. It’s fair to say that from day one I saw horror as more than a place to explore extremes and transgressions; I saw it as a fundamental tool for exploring the concept of self and how reality is perceived and defined.

Of course I had no understanding of the term “quiet horror” at that age, but I did when I watched the movie for a second time as an adult a couple of years ago. In the intervening years my interest in the horror and exploitation cinema of 70s/80s grew into a lifelong fascination, if not almost obsession at times. All the differing branches of horror, itself a very fluid term, hold varying degrees of fascination but as far as cinema goes, quiet horror is the deepest well for me. (I find it more problematic as a term in literature, though there are many quiet horror stories and novels I’d recommend unreservedly.) It’s always chancy to revisit a film that made such an impression at a young age, but not only was Jessica no less disquieting for all my adult understanding of what it was trying to do, the question of identity seemed even more prevalent. I experienced a breakdown as a teenager, and there is also a strain of mental instability in my family history. Jessica’s concerns have never been far from home.

There is more to Jessica than the concerns of reality, identity and sanity. For instance, the movie captures the post-Manson mood of a destabilized America where the old were afraid of the young and the young were afraid of each other. In the post-9/11 world, where American fear and paranoia is constantly directed outward at The Other, Jessica provides a snapshot of a time where that same paranoia was directed inward at each other (it could be argued that it still is, to some degree, since America currently sees boogeymen everywhere, from under the bed to overseas, perhaps an inevitable consequence of globalism—but in the early 70s the scope was arguably much narrower.) This era led to perhaps the only period of reflection and inward-searching America has experienced as a society—this is more common in European society, for example. The saber-rattling began once again in the Reagan era and has essentially continued nonstop since, the media spin the only real difference. But that is a whole ‘nother conversation and not relevant to this piece. Essentially what I’m saying is that, as a window into a particular era, Jessica captures a societal mood that is so very different to what we live in today as to seem downright alien. One gets a nostalgic, even wistful, feeling viewing the film now. We no longer have time to have a breakdown and move to the country to sort it out—the noise will still be there, 24/7. And if you don’t like your current identity, discard it and put on another. The fake is real and the real is fake.

Quiet horror has a harder time of it in such a noisy, fragmented world. Yet I think well-drawn character studies will always have their place as a valid arena for exploring personal, intimate concerns. And there is nothing more intimate than perception: it is how we steer our everyday lives. (Dreams are a different matter.) Being able to confront the questions and limits of perception, while disquieting and often scary, can be a transformative experience. Jessica’s refusal to tie everything up in neat bows gives it a staying power that allows it to still function as a vehicle to explore these concerns, all of these years later. Not bad for a low-budget indie film.