Jakob’s Wife (2021)

Film: To say I have a crush on Barbara Crampton is a bit of an understatement. This is going to sound extraordinarily bizarre, but before I saw her in Reanimator in 1986 or 1987, I was a brunette person, but Crampton completely turned me around. I’ve been an avid follower of her career (except the soap opera days) and as far as I am concerned, if she’s in a film, it’s a sign of quality.

Over the past couple of years Crampton has appeared in a few horror films that really stood out for me: Adam Wingard’s You’re Next, Ted Geoghan’s We Are Still Here and Jackson Stewart’s Beyond the Gates were all films I really liked and possibly wouldn’t have watched if not for her presence. Hell, I even played Back 4 Blood because she played a voice in it.

Anyways, enough about what a weirdo I am, Jakob’s Wife stars Crampton, along with he co-star from We Are Still Here, Larry Fessenden, and Bonnie Aarons, from The Nun, I Know Who Killed Me and Mulholland Drive. The film was directed by Travis Stevens, who gave us the C. M. Punk-starring Girl on the Third Floor, who shares the writing duties with The Special’s Mark Steensland and the writer of the Castle Freak remake, Kathy Charles.

Jakob’s Wife tells of Anne Fedder (Crampton), the frustrated, mousey and resentful wife of town minister, Jakob Fedder (Fessenden) who when a teenager had dreams of travel and an exotic life that tragically went unfulfilled.

As a high-profile member of the town, she is assisting in the revamping of an old mills into a new shopping precinct, with the help of her teenage boyfriend Tom Low (Robert Rusler) who we find out is back for her and not for the mill, but whilst checking out the site, they run into a small problem. Tom is attacked and seemingly killed by rats, and someone, or someTHING attacks Anne.

Suddenly, Jakob notices changes in Anne, she’s more confident, and has a list for blood, but what is a good, wholesome, God-fearing family to do when one of the members might be a vampire?

Jakob’s Wife is a strange film. Is it a black comedy? I think so, but a great deal of it is played straight, and there is certainly some themes related to marital frustrations, and people trying to maintain their faith when there doesn’t seem room for any. It also leans into some physical comedy too, but that might just be because Fessenden is such a loveable goofball. He’s just the Total Dad of B grade horror.

The gore and effects are heaps of fun. The main vampire ‘The Master’ has a great Nosferatu/ Salem’s Lot look about it, and the blood-letting effects are straight out of any Hong Kong/ Sushi Typhoon movie, that is, like a damned fire hose!

At the end of the day, weirdly enough, it’s a story about marriage, and how sometimes some people get lost behind another, but with a shed-load of blood attached. At its best the film is ok, but I think it struggles at times to decide what it’s trying to be. It’s not enough black comedy, the gore is a little too silly to be horrible, and occasionally the actings is a bit too slapstick. I think I WANT to like it more than what I actually do.

One thing though, my crush on Barbara is well and truly intact.

Score: **1/2

Extras: The disc starts with reviews for Son, Psycho Goreman and The Dark and The Wicked before hitting the menu screen.

The Making of Jakob’s Wife only goes for 5 odd minutes and doesn’t really dive deep into the actual ‘making of’, it really just a few sound bytes from the cast about the film.

There’s about 13 minutes of deleted scenes which as usual, make little difference to the story.

Score: **

WISIA: It’s not great, but with Barbara in it, I’ll be back.