I saw Jacob's Ladder in a theater in 1990 when I was 19 and it blew my mind. Not a lot of things blow my mind because I think of those things before I experience them and then when I experience them, I think, "Yeah. No shit." It's why in my 20s I simply assumed I was the reincarnation of every major philosopher and writer that had ever lived and I was their vacation reincarnation spot where they could just relax and have a good time without stressing about their literary legacy. We were just going to read, play games, and drop acid. It's possible the dropping acid part of that was responsible for the "I'm the reincarnation of loads of super smart historical people and also probably Jim Morrison" part. Anyway, for some reason, Jacob's Ladder blew my mind.
If you haven't seen Jacob's Ladder, I'm going to spoil the 2019 remake for you because I can't talk about this episode of The Twilight Zone, "The Hitch-Hiker", without doing so. Jacob's Ladder is about a man returning from Vietnam and having a terrible time trying to live his post-war life, mostly because he keeps seeing demons and weird shit. But here's the big twist that some of you have probably already figured out without even having seen the movie yet because you were raised in a post-M. Night Shyamalan world: the guy's entire post-war life was just a hallucination he was having as he bled out and died in a helicopter in Vietnam. I might have some of the details wrong because I haven't seen the movie since that day in 1990. "The Hitch-Hiker" is the same story except a little looser with the laws of what dying people are capable of doing as they're dying. The guy in Jacob's Ladder simply hallucinated. The woman in "The Hitch-Hiker" continues to drive cross country trying to hook up with sailors after she died. But that's why this is a rough draft of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" which I haven't talked about but it's just another episode of The Twilight Zone that's basically Jacob's Ladder.
Finding that at least two episodes of The Twilight Zone were based on people living a little more life just after they died, I find it hard to believe that Jacob's Ladder blew my mind as it did (am I using that phrase too much? Maybe next time I'll say the movie made me shit my pants). I'm sure I'd seen both of these episodes of The Twilight Zone at some point, seeing as how I watched the show whenever I found it on television. Or, like Star Trek, I often had it playing in the background as I played computer RPGs on my Apple IIe. I suppose a large part of the movie making me shit my pants was that it completely duped me and I wasn't expecting to see anything so heady and thought-provoking. I'm pretty sure the only reason my friend Paul and I went to see it was because we thought it was a horror movie. And, I suppose, it was. Just not the kind we were expecting. This one definitely didn't have any teenagers fucking in the woods.
"The Hitch-Hiker" begins with a beautiful woman named Nan who is so beautiful that this sentence was supposed to say something else about her but now it's only going to be about how beautiful she is. She has just rolled her car off the side of the highway and died. But nobody knows it yet! Not even her! So instead of lying there and not saying or doing anything because she's dead, she thanks a mechanic for changing her tire for her and then follows him into town to get a new tire. It only costs thirty bucks!
On the way to the service station, and then again at the service station, Nan sees a creepy hitch-hiker that creeps her (and me!) out. The rest of the episode is Nan becoming more and more frightened as she continually sees this creepy dude trying to get into her car all across America. Eventually she gets so scared that she invites a sailor into her car for company. When he begins to suspect that she's crazy, he flees from her car even after she tells him she'll blow him if he stays. Remember this is 1959 so she says it 1959 language: "Look. I like you. I really like you very much, as a matter of fact. That's why I picked you up. Because I liked you. I thought that we could be friends and I'd kind of like for you to take me out." I mean, put it back in your scared shitless pants, lady! The sailor decides not to continue with Nan which is more unbelievable than Nan being dead, even for 1959.
Eventually, Nan decides to check in with her mom and call home. That's when she discovers her mom has been hospitalized for shock after finding out her daughter died on the highway after a blow out caused her to roll her car. And it's at that moment that Nan realizes the hitch-hiker was just another dead guy trying to get a lift to Hell. Or he maybe he was Death personified. Probably that one. Although I really like the idea that he was a hitch-hiker that she crashed into and killed when she died and he's been chasing her all over the country trying to get a ride-share to Hell.
I once picked up a hitch-hiker while driving North up the Pacific Coast Highway in my 1972 Volkswagen bus. He was all, "I'm going to Arcadia!" And I was all, "Tough shit! I'm going to Eureka!" And he was all, "Oh man!" And I was all, "Look. I really like you. Very much. That's why I picked you up! Because I liked you. I thought we could be friends so I guess I'll take you to Arcadia and then turn back around to Eureka." And then he blew me. As a friend, of course!
That story about me didn't have anything to do with the theme of this episode. But it was pretty sexy, right?!
This episode didn't really impress me much but I have to give it credit. If Jacob's Ladder could blow my shit in 1990, I suppose this story probably freaked the fuck out of a lot of people in 1959 (and earlier when the radio drama of Lucille Fletcher's story was first broadcast). And I bet in 1959 more people actually believed in ghosts and the afterlife! Although they were less afraid of hitch-hikers. Back then, hitch-hikers were just people trying to get from one place to another, probably to see a sick relative. But now we know 95% of all hitch-hikers are serial killers, rapists, or the personification of Death.
Anyway, my point is that Inger Stevens, the woman who played Nan, was scarily beautiful.
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