- Directed by Adrian Lyne
- Written by Bruce Joel Rubin
- Stars Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Peña, Danny Aiello, Matt Craven
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 53 Minutes
- Trailer: https://youtu.be/tLulu1Ovi2c
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
They do a lot with practical effects, lighting, atmosphere, and strong acting. It builds nicely, getting stranger and worse for Jacob as it goes on. And what is going on? Gotta keep watching to find out. Horror Guy Kevin enjoyed it even more in this, his second viewing.
Synopsis
We begin in Vietnam, In 1971, during the war, and nobody looks happy to be there. A helicopter unloads some soldiers. They get warning of an impending attack, but several men go into painful convulsions before they can respond. When the attack comes, none of them is ready for it. Jacob searches the woods and gets bayoneted.
He wakes up in a New York subway in 1975; it was just a flashback-nightmare. A homeless guy is sleeping on the train, and before Jacob gets off, he sees a tentacle come out of the man. He’s gotten off on the wrong side of the tracks, so he gets down onto the rails to get to the other side and almost gets run over. As it passes, he sees a strange man on the back of the train.
He gets home and talks to Jezzie, his wife. They look at old pictures and talk about Sarah, Jake’s ex. He sees a picture of Gabe, his son who died while he was in Vietnam. Later, she burns all his old photos because she’s mad that they make him sad.
Jake is a mailman, and he goes to see Louis, a chiropractor, for his back. They talk about Sarah. Meanwhile, Jake flashes back to his rescue in Nam. He goes to the VA, but they have no record of him ever having been there before. He runs to his doctor’s office, but there’s no one there who recognizes him or the name of his doctor. He’s told Dr. Carlson died about a month ago.
Jake thinks he’s seeing demons, and he tells Jezzie about them. They go to a party, and a woman there reads his palms. She knows a lot about him. She says his life-line is very strange; “according to this, you’re already dead.” It’s a loud, obnoxious party, and he soon starts seeing things— birds, tentacles, and men without faces.
When they get home, Jezzie yells at him about going crazy. When she finds out that he’s got a temperature of 106, she changes her tune and calls a doctor. She and the neighbors put him in an icy bath and he thinks they’re trying to kill him.
He wakes up in bed with Sarah, his ex-wife, and complains about how cold it is in the room. He tells her that he dreamed that he was living with Jezzie, that woman from work, and there were demons all around him. Little Gabe comes in and complains about it being cold as well. Jed, his other son, asks for his allowance. He then goes back to bed with Sarah. He wakes up with the doctor, Jezzie, and their dog.
All through this, we see flashes of Jake’s helicopter extraction after being stabbed. Jake wakes up and tells Jezzie, “I’m not dead.”
As he recovers, Jake starts reading books on witchcraft and demonology. Jezzie wants him to get out of the house and do something. She’s… not very supportive.
Jake gets a call from Paul, who needs to see him. Paul says something is wrong but can’t talk to anyone else about it. “I’m going to Hell. They’re coming after me. They’ve been following me.” Jake answers, “I’ve seen them too. Everywhere, like a plague.” He watches Paul die in a car explosion.
Paul has a funeral, and lots of people go to the party afterward. Several of Paul’s friends from the war think it was a car bomb, but the police say it was an electrical problem. Several of the men get really upset when Jake mentions that Paul had seen “demons.” The whole group goes to a lawyer’s office to see what happened that night so long ago. The lawyer Geary takes their depositions and promises to see what he can get from the Army.
Geary soon calls back and says they don’t have any case. He talks to Frank, who says none of the guys want to push this any further. Geary says that Jake needs a psychiatrist, not a lawyer. Geary says Jake never even went to Vietnam, they were discharged after some war games in Thailand. On his way out of the courthouse, two men grab him and force him into a car. They’re with the army, and they insist that he let it lie. He jumps from the car and then gets robbed by Santa Claus.
When they take Jake to the hospital, he rants about being robbed by Santa, and they think he’s crazy. It’s not a normal hospital; it’s a dungeon full of monsters, gore, and bloody parts on the floor. They strap his head into a vise and then Jezzie comes in to do the surgery. “I want to go home.” “You are home; you’re dead. There is no getting out of here; you’ve been killed, remember?”
Sarah and the two still-surviving sons come to visit Jake in the hospital. He tells her, “I’m not dead; I’m alive.” The doctors have said Jake may be in the hospital for months.
Louis forcefully comes in and unhooks Jake from the traction equipment. Louis puts Jake into a wheelchair and wheels him out amid medical protests. At Louis’s place, he works on Jake’s back and gives him a bunch of philosophical advice about making his peace. Afterward, Jake can walk.
Jake goes home and looks at his honorable discharge papers as well as photos of the guys in Vietnam. He flashes back to Gabe’s death.
He gets a call from a guy on the phone who wants to talk about chemical warfare and wants to meet him. Jezzie warns Jake not to go, but he has to. The man’s name is Michael, and Jake’s seen him around before.
Mike was arrested for making LSD, but they offered to release him if he went to Vietnam, working on mind-altering drugs. They wanted one that would increase aggressive tendencies, something to tap into anger. They called it “The Ladder.” They decided to use The Ladder on Jake’s battalion to see if it was effective. It was, but not in the way they expected. “You killed each other. Brother against brother. You tore each other to pieces.”
Jake takes a taxi home. The doorman calls him “Dr. Singer” and says it’s been a long time. It’s where Sarah, Jed, and Eli live. He sees Gabe, who leads him upstairs, into the light….
Back in Vietnam, the doctor calls it: Jake’s dead.
Commentary
If you pass out at a chiropractor’s, someone’s doing it wrong.
It’s just one long string of one nasty thing happening to Jake after another. It’s got some awesome visuals once it finally gets going, but by that point, you have no idea what’s really going on. I have to say, I had a pretty good suspicion after the first time Jake said, “I’m alive, I’m not dead,” that he was dead wrong.
The special effects are minimal; the gore bits are well done, but not excessive. There’s lots that doesn’t make sense on a first viewing, but it’s all very tense and horrific.