Jakob’s Wife
**”Jakob’s Wife” debuts on Shudder on Thursday, August 19.**
When she first read the role of Anne in “Jakob’s Wife,” it’s hard not to imagine Barbara Crampton- whose best known work is from the 1980s like “Re-Animator,” “Chopping Mall” and “Body Double” (although she’s worked consistently over the years in films including “You’re Next” and “The Lords of Salem”)- getting excited at the opportunity to play this character. The hook itself is so tantalizing, then think about a shift that happens in Act 2, and oh my God it just takes the film to another level of entertainment. You’ll have to see the movie for yourself to find out what occurs there, though.
Even if Travis Stevens’s film had just followed the trajectory the screenplay he wrote with Kathy Charles and Mark Steensland lays out in the beginning of the movie, you have such a wonderful playground of ideas to work with. Anne Fedder (Crampton) is the wife of a small-town minister, Jakob (Larry Fessenden), and he is a fairly conservative-minded pastor and husband; when their grown kids are over for dinner one night, he chastises them if they take the Lord’s name in vein. Their life is one of routine, and Anne feels more content than happy. One day, an old boyfriend name Tom (Robert Rusler) comes into town; he is part of a development team looking to take lead on a project in the town. He and Anne meet for lunch, and go to the site. Things are never the same after that, and it’s not long before Jakob starts to suspect something.
I’m dancing around some major points, but needless to say, the fact that this is coming to Shudder should tell you that the event that happens when Tom and Anne meet is rooted in horror and the supernatural. What matters in “Jakob’s Wife,” and why it feels like something special, is the thematic and emotional beats in the story. Anne’s journey isn’t as much into a supernatural story as in an emotional place where, for the first time in a while, she feels alive. This isn’t necessarily a situation where she stops caring for Jakob, or realizing she could do better, but understanding that the life they’ve lived has gotten stale, and she is not happy about that. She feels like she can live again, and if that means her diet is changing, well that’s kind of what happens when you go through big perspective changes in your life- you start to realize that what worked in the past isn’t going to work moving forward. Of course, a diet of blood is hard to sustain, isn’t it?
Crampton and Fessenden both do terrific work in this. Crampton is the performance people have centered in on, and rightfully so, but Fessenden is crucial to this film working, especially by the time the third act comes along. From the moment he senses something off from Anne, it forces Jakob to think about some terrible possibilities, and what it’s going to be like when he confronts Anne about them. When that occurs, the film shifts into another and becomes a wicked dark comedy where further issues between the two are explored. This was such a pleasure to discover, and going in knowing as little as possible is a wise idea, because the less you know about “Jakob’s Wife” at first, the more you’ll be rewarded. Once you get to know her, though, it’s hard not to fall in love with her.
