The Third Angel Sounded | The Degenerate Art of Nick Kushner

LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH

"Let's Scare Jessica to Death is a 1971 low budget American horror film, directed by John D. Hancock, and starring Zohra Lampert in the title role. The film focuses on a recently institutionalized woman who has various nightmarish experiences after moving to an old farmhouse on a New England island. In 2006, the Chicago Film Critics Association named Let's Scare Jessica to Death the 87th scariest film ever made.

"In the film Jessica, (Zohra Lampert), her husband (Barton Heyman), and a friend (Kevin O'Connor) retreat to a Victorian farmhouse in an isolated part of rural Connecticut, after Jessica's release from a mental institution, following a nervous breakdown. Once there, the trio encounter an enigmatic hippie (Mariclare Costello) who is living in the house, and almost immediately, Jessica's madness resumes - increasing evidence from Jessica's point of view mounts to the fact that Emily may be a ghost and/or vampire, and that all those inhabiting the island are as well -- though the viewer is never sure whether the subsequent turn of events are all in Jessica's mind, or whether something sinister is truly after her.

"The film was shot in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. The village of Chester was used as was the Chester-Hadlyme Ferry crossing the Connecticut River. The movie was similar in tone to Rosemary's Baby and The Haunting, in that its story is told from the vantage point of a female protagonist, whose sanity and good judgment may be in question, and its emphasis on story and atmosphere rather than excessive gore and violence. Also, like those films, the ending is intentionally vague, leaving viewers to draw their own conclusions. The plot itself seems to be loosely modeled after the 1872 vampire novella, Carmilla."

...WIKIPEDIA ENTRY ON LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH