Transcript

Michael (Jacob's Ladder)

Even a bad trip, and believe me, I've had my share, did not compare to the fury of the Ladder.

Jacob (Jacob's Ladder)

The Ladder?

Michael (Jacob's Ladder)

Yeah, that's what they called it. A fast trip straight down the Ladder, right to the primal fear, right to the base anger. Anyway, there was this big offensive coming up, right?

Michael (Jacob's Ladder)

Everyone knew it. Time Magazine, Huntley, Brinkley. And the brass was scared, man, because they knew we couldn't win. Morale was down. It was getting ugly in the States.

Michael (Jacob's Ladder)

Oh, you remember?

Jacob (Jacob's Ladder)

Yeah.

Michael (Jacob's Ladder)

So a couple days later, they decide to use the Ladder on one test battalion. Yours. Just an infinitesimal dose in the food supply, they said, just to prove its effectiveness in the field.

Michael (Jacob's Ladder)

They were sure your unit would have the highest kill ratio of any in the whole goddamn offensive. And they were right. You did. Except not the way they thought.

Jacob (Jacob's Ladder)

No one can remember that night. I get flashes, but they don't make sense. What happened? Was there an offensive?

Michael (Jacob's Ladder)

Yeah, couple days later.

Michael (Jacob's Ladder)

It was fierce. But you guys never saw it.

Jacob (Jacob's Ladder)

There was an attack there. Was that the fight, right?

Michael (Jacob's Ladder)

Yeah, but now it's a con.

Jacob (Jacob's Ladder)

With who?

Michael (Jacob's Ladder)

You killed each other.

Steve

It's two Dad's one movie Shocktoberfest. A celebration of the spookiest movies of the 80s and 90s. Now here are your hosts. Scary Steve, Paulo and Nightmare. Nic.

Steve

Briana. Hello, everybody. It's another episode of 2Dads. One movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

And today we're Talking about the 1990s psychological thriller Jacob's Ladder as part of our. This is the second episode of our Shocktoberfest. I don't know if that sounds cool or not, but that's how I'm gonna say it.

Nic

I think we can add a lot of effects, and I gotta do reverb.

Steve

Yeah. I gotta do. Make it sound like a rock concert, but yeah. This is our second episode of Shocktoberfest. We.

Steve

We regaled you with of A Nightmare on Elm street last week, and this week we're looking at Jacob's Ladder, which is the 1990 film starring Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Pena and Danny Aiello, about a Vietnam veteran comeback from the war and dealing with all kinds of crazy shit. And, Nic, you picked this for us. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your history with Jacob's Ladder.

Nic

Yeah. So, you know, I'd seen this one, I think, maybe twice before and just remembered it just really kind of disturbing me in trying to think of a film for Shocktoberfest.

Nic

I was never really into the traditional kind of like, monst. Like serial killer type Horror movies. But this was one that I remember, like, really thinking about a lot after I see it, although I didn't remember a ton from it. So I was refreshing a lot during this watch through. But I thought this is like another approach to like a way to have a film, like make you feel terrified.

Nic

You know, you got the Freddy Krueger character, whatever, Jason chasing you. Or you have something like this where it's like your own mind is basically torturing you.

Steve

Right? Yeah, yeah. That's one of the classic conflicts of fiction, right?

Steve

There's like man versus man, man versus nature, man versus Sel. This is clearly a man versus self category.

Nic

Yeah, yeah. And I always like, you know, Tim Robbins, like, he had a stretch there in the early 90s. Holy moly.

Steve

From the mid to late 80s. You could go at least back to Bull Durham and then go from there, like. Yeah, absolutely.

Nic

I mean, he was really on fire. So you get some of the best Tim Robbins in this.

Nic

He's incredible in it. For some reason. I remembered Danny aiello as Danny DeVito When I was like watching it. But it might have been that also Jason Alexander's in it too. So I was like, okay, it's a Danny something O.

Nic

And it's like a short, fat, bald guy. It's got to be. But yeah, I mean, I think all the supporting cast is really great in this and it's just an interesting. Different type of movie than we've done so far.

Steve

For sure.

Steve

Yeah. And I think on the topic of supporting cast, I want to mention, because I saw him in the credits and then I could not figure out who the heck he was. You know, he. One of the. This particular actor in this movie had a character with like a first name only kind of thing.

Steve

And it didn't seem like it was one of the. One of the kind of squad, you know, platoon mates or whatever from Nam. But Kyle Gass, the other half of Tenacious D, right along with Jack Black, is in this movie. He's like. I think the second to last credit in the credits is Kyle Gass.

Steve

And I confirmed it is absolutely the same man. But I couldn't tell you where in the movie he was. I thought for a second that he was the former platoon mate who finds Tim Robbins character Jake and like talks to him. But that guy's name is Paul and so that's not the character. It was something else.

Steve

Also, kind of on the topic of supporting cast, big uncredited part in this one as Macaulay Culkin does not appear in the credits. Looked into It a little bit sound like maybe it had something to do with his complete piece of shit of a father and some kind of rights or something. Or something to do with Culkin's dad. Why that didn't happen.

Nic

Yeah, because that would have been a draw.

Nic

I mean, especially this movie being released a year after Home Alone.

Steve

Absolutely.

Nic

I mean, McCall, you're going to get all the crossover fans of Home Alone. Maybe. Maybe it was a good idea, actually.

Steve

Yeah. I don't know. It's between this and my girl. This guy had a real weird post. Home Alone.

Nic

Seriously? Oh, I didn't know he was uncredited. And also I did spot, like, Eric lasalle, one of his.

Steve

One of his platoon mates, and Vin.

Nic

Reigns, two Dads one Movie, multiple parents award winner.

Steve

At some point, we're going to have to actually talk about who are the actual, like, spirit animals, totems, slash mascots of 2Dads 1 movie. And I'm going to throw that out there. Throw this out there right now that I have, like, some early favorites. Among them, Joe, Don Baker, Stephen Tobolowski, David. I feel like real contenders for, like, that.

Steve

That sort of thing. So we'll have to figure that out over time. But yeah, this is the second appearance by Eric LaSalle, Ving Rhames, again, also one of the platoons. And awesome. And yeah, just so.

Nic

Just like top to bottom, you know, you're recognizing guys and everything.

Steve

Absol.

Nic

So, yeah, so this was a movie I thought would be kind of fun to talk to, talk about in, like, a different type of scary movie.

Steve

Right.

Nic

So had you seen this one before?

Steve

No. So this one was. Not only is this a movie I'd never seen, this was a movie that I have consistently since the 90s, conflated in my head with another movie. And I can't really explain why, but for whatever reason, whenever anyone would say Jacob's Ladder, I would see a reference to Jacob's Ladder. For some reason, I would think of the Lawnmower man, the movie about, like, virtual reality that, like, was based on, like, a Stephen King short story.

Steve

For some reason, I always thought Jacob's Ladder had something to do was that movie. Movie, basically. And the funny part about that is that I've also never seen the Lawnmower man, so I'm not really sure. But in my head, for whatever reason, that picture from, like, the VHS box of, like, the virtual reality guy whose head was, like, too big, Lawnmower man box. I would, like, conflate in my head with the COVID of the Jacob's Ladder Box, which was the shaking head sort of faceless demon look.

Steve

Right. You know what I mean? That little special effect.

Nic

Plus you get the ladder and the lawnmower both appearing in the back of small Toyota pickup trucks and stuff like that.

Steve

That's a good point.

Steve

That's construction equipment and landscape and things like that. So. But for whatever reason there's that. But no. So I had never seen it.

Steve

Didn't know it had to do with NOM initially. You know, when they, when you pick one for us that I haven't seen, I almost always go in as blind as possible.

Nic

Oh, nice.

Steve

You know, I just try to go in and like, like whatever you tell us in like the previous episode about like leading up to it. Okay, I know that.

Steve

But other than that, I try not to see too much about it or read more than the tiniest blurb about it, you know, before I get started. And on this one in particular, I just press play and got into it and went. Literally my first note is nom. Yeah, look at this. It's nom.

Steve

Okay, but before we dive into the actually talking about Jacob's Ladder, which is. Yeah, let's go to the facts on Jacob's Ladder. So Jacob's Ladder came out on November 2, 1990 with an R rating, a running time of 113 minutes. It is directed by Adrian Line and written by Bruce Joel Rubin. Which I gotta say, if your middle name is Joel, that's an odd middle name to use.

Steve

I feel like single syllable middle names.

Nic

Are kind of just make it the letter.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bruce J. Rubin sounds better than Bruce.

Nic

Joel, better than BJ R, than probably in high school and stuff.

Nic

When you're getting made fun of by.

Steve

The kids, I feel that. So starring as we mentioned before, Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Pena and Danny Aiello. Those are the ones I chose to kind of put on there. Really.

Steve

It's. It's a Tim Robbins joint more than anything.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Scores very respectable scores across the board. Rotten tomatoes, a 72%.

Steve

That's nice. And, and fresh. Definitely above their fresh threshold. And IMDb a very comparable 7.4. Although we kind of should mention like it's comparable obviously in that it's literally similar.

Steve

But seven get into mid sevens. That's a hard score to achieve. Yeah. On IMDb, Jacob's Ladder appears as have three or four other movies we've done in IMDb's top 250 overall scores. Okay, so good.

Steve

Good for the movie there. And then a new thing we're adding to just the facts starting this Time. Siskel and Ebert gave it two thumbs up.

Nic

All right, there you go, Jane and Bob, Nice job.

Steve

There you go.

Steve

Awards. It won both the audience award and the critics award at the 1991 Viores Fantastic Film festival, which was a short lived and no longer exists, but from like the late 70s into the mid-90s, I think. Fantasy Sci fi horror film festival in Avior as France. And it was kind of an interesting festival for a while. It was.

Steve

There was a Paris fantasy film festival that got very corporate and very kind of like studio driven. And this was sort of like an independent attempt to do something similar in France. So. Yeah. However, so, you know, good awards, good scores.

Steve

Budget, box office doesn't translate here. On a $25 million budget, which I think shows up on screen. There's a lot of great special effects in this movie. On a $25 million budget, it earned 26.1 million at the box office. I'm going to put it in there.

Steve

It's 1.04%. Excuse me, 1.04 times its budget. So we would call that, if not a flop, certainly a significant disappointment.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

For that.

Steve

So. So, yeah. So not a hit when it came out, but fairly well received by critics. Obviously a very interesting, very cerebral kind of movie. Yeah, I could see why.

Steve

It certainly wasn't like a crowd pleaser, I don't think. People walking.

Nic

It's not a date movie. It's not like a. A fun like Christmas time blockbuster.

Nic

Like it's November 2nd and you're going with your family to the movies on Thanksgiving.

Steve

It seems like. Well, it's, you know, it's definitely closer to Halloween. So it seems like maybe that was like Halloween weekend. Right.

Steve

That was probably the.

Nic

You can't travel back in time to actual Halloween.

Steve

Yeah, right. Well, so, yeah. But you know that.

Steve

Yeah, that was a Friday then that, that year Halloween was what, on like Tuesday then? Right. So like right around there. But that's just. I don't see people leaving the theater after watching this movie and rushing home to tell all their friends and family that they should go see it.

Steve

Yeah. You know, this really feels like more of a ponderous kind of like it's difficult. It's.

Nic

It's a challenging, like, there you go. It's a great piece of art, I think, but it's very.

Nic

It. It's not supposed to make you feel warm and fuzzy.

Steve

For sure. Yes. As you have mentioned on the pod before, like sometimes art should challenge you.

Steve

And I do feel like this is definitely one of those movies that is More challenging than. Than fun. Yeah, for sure. So, yeah. All right, man, let's dive into it.

Steve

Why don't you kick us off?

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

How the. The movie opens up.

Nic

All right, so like Steve said, you know, the first scene that we have in the film, we're in Vietnam or in.

Nic

You know, they're. They're based in Vietnam, and they're definitely, like, in the action. They seem to be deep into the. The jungle there. And we.

Nic

It shows on the screen that it's. It's October 6, 1971, in the Mekong Delta. So this is setting where we're at. We have Tim Robbins and his various buddies, and they're kind of, like, just talking shit to each other and joking around, and they're calling him the Professor. He seems like he's revered, maybe a little bit older than the rest of the guys and stuff.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And, you know, he's looking around for everything. He needs his accoutrement to be able to go take a dump in the woods.

Steve

Right, right.

Nic

So that's kind of how it's starting off is like, they're in this situation.

Nic

It's not really tense. It's just a kind of, oh, man, I wish some action would happen. I came here to shoot some guys kind of like, playing cards and talking shit, you know.

Steve

I agree with you. There is, though, like.

Steve

And I think this is something that we see throughout the film starts right off the bat. There is this undercurrent of tension. There is this, like, everything from the sort of wisps of. Either if it's like smoke or it's just like some kind of a fog from in the jungle just kind of moves through the scene, kind of, you know, covers people or, you know, they're looking. Nothing seems settled.

Steve

Everything seems very tense, very unsettling. It was so funny, too, when they did refer to Tim Robbins character's professor. I just assumed they were making fun of the guy with glasses. Yeah. Only later, like a PhD later, did I realize, yeah, he actually has a doctorate and was drafted after having become a doctor.

Nic

Right.

Steve

And calling a professor made sense. But, yeah, I was like, oh, man, they're really nailing the guy. They're really nailing the four eyes here. Just call the professor.

Steve

What a bunch of jerks.

Nic

And, you know, the unsettling thing, honestly, like, as a. As a guy who sometimes find myself, like, really scrambling to get a comfortable situation to go like number two, the way that Tim is, like, that made me a little squirmy in my seat. It's like Oh, I hope this guy finds what he needs to read so we can, like, get some privacy and take care of this.

Steve

Yes, exactly.

Nic

Yeah. So. So basically it kind of goes right from that. And also I will say that Tim Robbins loves their. He loves getting from these guys.

Steve

No, absolutely.

Nic

They're. They're giving him. And he's enjoying it. He's like, oh, what else you guys got for me?

Nic

So seems like they're all buds and then we just. It kind of cuts to. Something's wrong.

Steve

Just chaos.

Nic

Yeah, and it's just chaos all of a sudden.

Nic

Kind of like a ear ringing type situation. Some of the guys look like they're shooting at an enemy. Some of the guys just seem very discom. Uncomulated. Some of the guys are like, kind of catatonic, just like staring off or like, you know, some weird ticks going on.

Steve

And there's. Yeah, there's almost like one of. I think the thing. Rheims character is almost like rolling on the ground, vomiting, kind of like he clearly looks sick. Several of them look like they're clearly sick.

Steve

Others are just reacting. Yeah, they. They basically, somebody starts yelling about, you know, VC or something right in the. In the jungle, and so they start shooting. There's like, you know, a grenade launcher.

Steve

There's all this kind of stuff going on. And I will say this is one of the areas that I really appreciated. It was very, very good. Chaos of war, cinematography, lots of crazy jumps. You really couldn't tell what was going on.

Nic

Right.

Steve

You know, normally the kind of thing that in most movies, like, bothers me when. When. I mean, because it's hard to watch. But in something like this, or like the landing scene at the beginning of Saving Private Ryan or, you know, half of the movie Platoon.

Steve

Right. Like, it makes a lot of sense to shoot it like this. And it really does make you feel like we don't know what the hell's going on. But we're also, at this point given no reason to think there's anything under them. Their.

Steve

Their little encampment is under attack and, you know, they're reacting and they. At some point, Tim Robbins, like, separated out. But like. Yeah, it's just a very, like. It's a very chaotic, very like, crazy scene.

Steve

And I believe it just. He wakes up.

Nic

Yeah. So he's tending. He's tending to the Ving Rings character and then he ends up out in the woods and it kind of shows him, like, he gets st. That's right.

Steve

So that's right. So this happened here. It's Almost like the camera rushes towards him. Yeah, Right. So from our pov, he gets stabbed by somebody that is represented in this case by the camera.

Nic

Right?

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Right. So then it kind of cuts to, you know, the present day where the rest of the film is taking place. So.

Nic

And we learned this is like 1975, so it's a few years after Nam. And he wakes up on a subway car. Pretty empty subway car. And he's in a postal service uniform. So it's like post war.

Nic

He has the classic like longer haircut and is like there. And he's reading a book. Yeah, he'd fallen asleep reading a book.

Steve

Right.

Nic

Subway.

Steve

And he finds himself, you know, in this car with almost nobody else in it. Right. There's one woman, I think, sitting near him or. Yeah, yeah.

Nic

Like a very odd off putting old woman.

Steve

But he asks her like if they pass a certain station and she's not responding. It seems clear to me, like, oh, she doesn't speak English. You know, he's not going to get anywhere with her. He like makes it towards the door and there's like another homeless person or something. There's somebody sleeping on a, a, on a, one of these benches, one of these subway seats.

Steve

And before he can get off the train, it looks like that person's got a tail. Is that.

Nic

Yeah, like a tentacle or a tail or a snake or just something like very. Doesn't reveal a whole lot of it to us.

Steve

World's biggest horsehair parasite and the world's biggest insect.

Nic

Yeah. So he. And I was also noticing that there's advertisements on the wall in the subway. So there's a couple things that just have a single word displayed. And one of them says hell, right.

Nic

And then one of them says ecstasy.

Steve

Right.

Nic

That's around the wall. So what happens is he gets off and you know, is off at the subway stop. He's like, what's going on here?

Nic

Really? Like I was tensed up because this scenario really creeps me out is stopping because this is not glamorous. Like the coolest, greatest city in the earth. New York City right now. This is the warriors fucking bopping their way back to Coney.

Nic

New York City. So it's fucking grimy, things are broken, things look messed up. And he gets off the subway station and he's trying to find his way out and all these gates are closed and everything locked. And he realizes, like, oh, this is my stop. Like he sees these signs, it's his stop and he's trying to get off and he ends up like Walking along the track.

Steve

Right. He decides. I don't know if there's something he can tell from light or wind or something, that there's an opening on the other side of the platform. Basically. Like, if he was on the other side, which you can't really get to without crossing the track.

Steve

And boy, like, growing up in the Bay Area at least and knowing BART and the electric rail also, like, oh, my God, The. The amount of danger you put yourself in trying to cross tracks is insane.

Nic

And he did a terrible job crossing the track. He. He went so slow.

Steve

Oh, my God. I was so like. And he did, like, step into a big puddle at one point, which obviously is going to, like, throw you off a little. Like, I get that. But, yeah.

Steve

He seemed to have next to no urgency. No. To actually get to the other side and is almost hit by a train because of it. And this was really interesting. This is like the first.

Steve

So we get that he's woken up on the subway. We see this tail or something right. On this person. Then as he has to dive sort of to the ground all the way to the side so that the subway train that's coming can pass him without hitting him. He's able to look up at the windows as this train speeds by.

Steve

And clearly every single window has somebody staring out at him. Yeah.

Nic

With a really creepy ass face. Yeah.

Steve

They look really strange.

Steve

Some of them don't. Maybe even seem to have faces. Other of them have strange kind of twisted features. And it's just like, man, it's clear something's happening, right. Something's not right.

Steve

This guy's dealing with some shit.

Nic

Yeah. And he finally. He finally makes it home. It doesn't really show his.

Nic

His journey home. It's just like, okay, now he's back at his house, and it appears he has a significant other. He has a dog. He seems to have a pretty good situation there.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

His wife is in the shower.

Steve

Right.

Nic

You know, which is good girlfriend. And a theme girlfriend. But there's a theme, you know, going on through here where.

Nic

Where she. She decides that her character doesn't like to wear clothes very much. And that's a choice by the actress that I really respect.

Steve

I don't know if it was her choice, the director so much, but she clearly went with it. The actress in question is Elizabeth Pena.

Steve

She's fantastic in this. And this movie helped me realize, like, in retrospect, I actually had a huge crush on her in Rush Hour. I remember watching Rush Hour several times when I was younger. And she's in that she's like, you know, Tucker's like, old partner, or she works at the police station with him when. When.

Steve

When Jackie Chan comes in. And she always thought she was gorgeous in that. She's obviously not. You know, she doesn't spend half that movie topless, but, you know, it's like. Yeah, no, she's a very pretty woman and very, you know, an actress.

Steve

She's as the. As an actress, she's playing this character in a way throughout this movie that I think is really interesting, where she's clearly both, like, head over heels in love with Jake. With Tim Robbins character. Yeah. But also, like, pretty irritated by kind of what's happening to him.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And that's a weird place to be in. And, you know, it's like. It felt very human the way she was playing.

Nic

It really was very well.

Steve

Well done.

Nic

Yeah. That she didn't find a spot in the middle. Like, she's going back and forth between. And I. Dude.

Nic

I mean, as much as, like, in the scenario that we're shown now, this is a guy who suffered a lot of trauma in Vietnam a few years ago. You have to give a lot of grace to a person like that, but it must also just be incredibly frustrating to deal with them.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So he ends up having another kind of terrifying Vietnam dream that she. She wakes him up from.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

And, yeah, I wrote down here, I like a lady who's casual about her nips. It is funny, though, in a movie like this that is just such a rough slog. It's like, oh, can we save the good nudity for an enjoyable movie?

Steve

Yeah.

Steve

It's like. And I'm spending half the time, you know, questioning, like, at this point, again, having not seen the movie before, so, like, really not knowing what to expect when I. We start seeing. And I start thinking to myself, myself, did he go to Nam? Are these memories, Right.

Steve

Flashbacks, or are they nightmares? Like, what is he. Like, what did happen here? And. Which I think is great.

Steve

You know, a testament to the writer. Writer and the director, where I can't, as an audience member, feel confident that I know what's real and what isn't.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

Right. Which is great.

Steve

That's absolutely the point. And I think they did it really well. And it ends up being a thing where it's like, I kind of have to just, like, the character, like, Jake, I just kind of have to accept that whatever we're. You know, whatever I'm experiencing with him as the audience member, like, we just have to accept it until we know more and so it's like kind of have to treat everything as quote, unquote, real until you're shown that it's not in some way. Right.

Steve

And so. But it made for very interesting viewing experience where I was just like, is this like an unreliable narrator situation where, like, he just doesn't know what's real and what isn't? Which obviously he doesn't, but that's what we're being told. Or like, are we supposed to understand already what's a dream, what's a nightmare, what's a memory? You know, all this kind of stuff.

Steve

It was very. It made for a very interesting, you know, watch especially early on here where I know for me as a first time viewer, like, really trying to piece together what is happening here. Yeah.

Nic

Like, where are we? Like, where are we?

Steve

Actually, it's back to that word, unsettling. Right. It's just. It felt like there was never solid ground to stand on to really understand this movie.

Nic

Yeah.

Nic

It doesn't let you get comfortable.

Steve

No. So what happened? She actually has received a bunch of a box full of like, photographs, basically. Right.

Steve

Like, what it sounds like is that that he has sons who. He has an ex wife and two sons. And the sons brought by these photographs because his ex wife was gonna destroy them or something. It was kind of what it said. And it's a bunch of pictures of him and his boys and the family stuff.

Steve

And he stops on one and it's. We can tell. I mean, we recognize them immediately. It's Macaulay Culkin playing this character. And she.

Steve

She asks him, is that the one that died before you went away to, you know, to the war? Yeah. And he said, yeah. So obviously he's lost a son at one time.

Nic

Right.

Nic

Those two burglars got him.

Steve

That's right, exactly. Those wet bandits. But yeah. So he is really affected by this.

Steve

He does take the one photo of Cauley Culkin's character in him and puts it in his wallet. But the rest of them are just there. And it's kind of freaking him out. And she makes a comment about I hate seeing you upset or I hate anything that upsets you. And it's like, okay.

Steve

But you kind of have to feel.

Nic

Your emotions, let go of that. I mean, if you have some horrible thing happen to you like that, and the memory of your kid who passed away is always gonna be associated with a certain amount of pain. You would take that pain forever just to be able to keep that memory alive.

Steve

And I don't want a photograph of the accident that killed him.

Steve

I want to remember the times that were great, that we were, like, playing and doing stuff like that made very little sense to me. So I really. I wrote very scathing, nasty words in my notebook about Elizabeth Pena's character because she takes these photographs to the incinerator in their apartment building, which is like. I was like, oh, my God.

Nic

It's a very Joe from Rounders move.

Steve

It's worse. This is worse than Joe.

Nic

Oh, certainly worse. But it's in the family of girlfriend behavior that we don't appreciate.

Steve

This is not Victoria Bennett.

Steve

This is not one of the good girlfriends we've had over the movies. For sure. Virginia Vennet. Darn it, I got that wrong. Whatever.

Steve

Happy Gilmore.

Nic

So she puts these photos in the incinerator. And while this is happening, he is. He's going to see his chiropractor. That's right, Danny Aiello.

Nic

And this is kind of like his grounding in the film. Like, this is the person that he trusts, the person who can get through to him, the person who can actually help him.

Steve

It seems.

Nic

And it seems like, you know, it doesn't get into a ton of detail, but he has some really crippling back issues and needs to go on a regular basis just to be able to move around and everything. So he gets like.

Nic

This is. This is a really nice combo where he gets, like, a sweet back adjustment right after he had a little action in the shower with his hot girlfriend. Like. And I honestly, at this age, I don't know which I'd prefer because, you know, 10 years ago, I'm going shower every time. So now I'm like, dude, a nice back crack.

Steve

Yeah. How big's the shower? If it's a big enough shower? Multiple heads. We're doing this.

Steve

We're in the shower together. Me and the lovely lady were in the shower. If it's like, you know, a tiny little tub, shower over tub.

Nic

It's like an airplane battle.

Steve

Yeah.

Steve

One of us is going to be on comfortable and cold the whole time. Let's just get that adjustment done instead. That's probably better. But actually, in general, I do think chiropractors are absolutely whack. And I went to one for years, and let's just say nothing's better.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Shout out to Dr. Kwong, my chiropractor. He is a good one. So, yeah, this was kind of funny. So Tim's leaving, I think, his chiropractor's office, and he's in his post office uniform, and there's all These women who are kind of like hanging out on the stoop and they start hollering out, hey, Mr. Postman.

Nic

And they start saying, Wait a minute, Mr. Postman. Which is really kind of a cute scene and doesn't, you know, it's like one of the few bright spots of, like, random joy in this movie.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

You know, we're like, Timmy's getting hollered at, like this haunted, like, tall, lanky, like, ultra disturbed Vietnam vet. All you got to do is put on a post office uniform and you're hot to these people.

Steve

I also think it really just. Just goes to show as a man, if you are, you know, not overweight and over six, three, and you have blue eyes, people are going to notice you. It doesn't matter what's going on in your head. Yeah, that's going to open some doors. I'm none of those things, but that's okay.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

But then we get thrown right into some chaos again.

Steve

Well, but real quick, I want to say, I think this was during the chiropractic adjustment he was having to this point in the movie. I had been wondering to myself, okay, did he actually get stabbed? Was he actually even.

Steve

Was he actually in Nam? What's real, what's not? Like, all this kind of stuff. I'm not really sure. But they did at this point, I think while he's with Danny Aiello.

Steve

You can see the scar. He's got a shirt off. So you see this huge scar, you know, sort of, you know, below his lungs on the left side. And it's like, okay, so he definitely was stabbed. Like that's happened.

Steve

And I feel like I really needed that from this movie at this time. I needed to know that something was confirmation of something. Something. Exactly. Because I knew that I was going to be like, dealing all, you know, hour and a half, whatever, plus almost two hours about this, like, figuring out, like, what's real, what's not.

Steve

So being able to get something, it's like, okay, so he definitely sustained, you know, look, a seriously. Look a serious looking wound there in Nam with how big the scars, everything's like, okay, so that's real.

Nic

So now after these ladies are kind of hollering at him, right. He's all of a sudden getting pursued by this car. And it's like, first looks like, like, oh, somebody accidentally almost hit me.

Nic

But.

Steve

Right.

Nic

They're pretty aggressively aiming for him.

Steve

Well, he's like running down an alley and they're swerving the whole alley. Yeah, yeah.

Nic

And. And he gets, you know, he ends Up Being able to dive out of the way. And as the car's driving away again, we get these really creepy faces looking out of the car at him. So it's like the second time, just like the train almost hit him.

Steve

That's right.

Nic

Creepy faces. Car almost hit some creepy faces here.

Steve

Yeah. Yeah. Pretty wild.

Nic

So, you know, he. And he knows he's maybe going crazy. Like, he doesn't. He doesn't 100% think that this is all definitely real because he knows he's a little up.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So he tries to go see his doctor, who's trusted psychiatrist, who is like a. You know, at the VA Hospital.

Steve

Yeah. And there's a nurse that he talks to kind of at the intake at the reception desk. I don't know if you recognize that actress.

Nic

Carmela Soprano's mom.

Steve

Oh, my God, you're right.

Nic

So we've got Tony's and Carmela's in a couple.

Steve

But is that. Was that also then the woman who played the principal in Uncle Buck.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

Molly Russell's wart. Yeah. Because that's where I recognize her from. But you're absolutely right.

Steve

She was also Carmela Soprano's mom.

Nic

She was a quarter. Why don't you have a rat chew that thing off your face?

Steve

Exactly. Go downtown.

Steve

But, yeah, so I wrote down. Yeah, that's the principal from Uncle Buck without the mole, clearly. That was prosthetic for the John Candy film, so.

Nic

So she's. The nurse tells him.

Nic

There's no record of your.

Steve

Of that doctor.

Nic

Doctor.

Steve

Yeah, yeah.

Nic

Like, we don't know what you're talking about.

Nic

You're not in our system. Y. Yeah. And he's like, no, like, I know. This is where I go.

Steve

I need.

Steve

I know where his office is. Let me go back. I'll just walk to his office. It's all good. Like.

Nic

And then at some point, the nurse kind of leans forward and her nurse's hat falls off. And you see, just. And again, this is what the movie does good at because it's not showing you anything that. That's super clear. It's kind of like a.

Nic

What the.

Steve

Is that exactly. Yeah.

Nic

And horns or teeth or something very odd, like, growing out of her. Something like super abnormal and nightmare.

Nic

Like, I mean, they've nailed so many nightmare visions so far in this movie, and we're not even that far into it, but, I mean, so many, like, recurring nightmare themes are everywhere here. So. Yeah. So then Jacob's just kind of like, what the. And he's trying to go.

Steve

He basically runs back. Yeah. To where the doctor is. But he busts into the office that he expects his psychiatrist to be in and there's some other doctor in there. And clearly in a group session.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

You know, 10 or 11 different people all look in various states of needing help and he kind of freaks out a little bit. So the psychiatrist that is there, you know, takes him out in the hallway to talk to him. And I don't remember the doctor's name that he's looking for, but he mentions, oh, he died in a car wreck. His car, that's right.

Steve

Yeah. Blew up a month ago. He died. And it's like, that's pretty wild. Like, what a wild way to go.

Steve

Right? Like, that's like.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Which mobster did you piss off if your car blows up?

Nic

Seriously.

Nic

I mean, it's. It's a really like crazy, crazy uncommon thing to hear. So that's got to be disturbing.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So.

Nic

So Jacob, he ends up going home after all this and he hasn't really told anybody about what he's seeing. And he starts talking to his girlfriend, Jezebel.

Steve

Right.

Nic

About these things that he. These creatures that he sees.

Nic

And what he says is these things were like demons, they weren't human.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nic

So we're kind of getting this like sense of is he in hell? Like, what's happening here?

Steve

Yeah, yeah.

Steve

It's definitely. Obviously quite deliberately pretty ambiguous as far as. Yeah, again, like, what is real, what isn't? And the other. It's almost.

Steve

I feel like when I was watching it that her certainty with which she was saying, like, no, no, no, there's no creatures. Like, you're fine, you know, kind of whatever you're just having, like, made me feel more and more like, shit. Is she like a demon person?

Nic

Right.

Steve

Like, you know what I mean?

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

I'm like, are pushing her now, like, what's going on? But basically she convinces him, I think, to go out to a party. Yeah, right.

Nic

That's sort of like, we gotta go out for you.

Nic

Right. I know you've been traumatized, but the best thing is to go somewhere that's loud and confusing.

Steve

Yeah, exactly. With flashing lights, a lot of alcohol, maybe some illicit drugs of different kinds. This is all absolutely perfectly good.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

For your mental health. So they go. And the first thing that I notice, or not the first thing, but like he opens the fridge to get a drink and there's just a like a cow head in it. Like, why would there be?

Nic

That's another just nightmare. Nightmare thing.

Steve

Freaky looking, these things everywhere.

Nic

Right. And that kind of.

Nic

That's off. Like, it catches you off guard because you think the party's about to shift the action and maybe we're going to reset a little bit. If the movie is about how he's maybe crazy, but then he keeps seeing this shit.

Steve

So it's like there's an element to, like, a lot of movies. Like.

Steve

And I'm not saying that there are a lot of movies like Jacob's Ladder, but in movies that are trying to play the what's real, what isn't game. Right. Which is. That's a little more common. I feel like there's generally a point where the movie really tries hard to give you scenes where nothing weird happens.

Steve

Right. And really tries to be like, okay, there's weird scenes and then there's nothing weird because. And I can see the purpose behind that of getting the audience to kind of, like, relax a little and then get shocked with something new like. That makes sense. But there's something about this movie where instead they just had some scenes where everything was absolutely psychotic or one thing was.

Steve

Yeah. It seemed like there's not a single scene from when. From the subway on where nothing weird happens. You know what I mean? There's always something that's, like, off, or there's somebody who looks weird, or there's a fucking cowhead in the fridge or whatever it is.

Steve

And so we never get that, like, full, take a breath, everything's okay thing. Everything's got this tension underneath it of like, is this real? Which part's real?

Nic

Yeah, yeah, it's. It's crazy.

Nic

And there's a cow head in the fridge. And then for some reason, another thing to not do if you're already freaking out is get a fucking palm reader. Do not do that.

Steve

It just seemed like, you know, and then it's like she. I'm like, this seems like foreshadowing because she literally tells him, oh, your lifeline, like, ended.

Steve

You're already dead. And it's like, well, that's a little on the nose. Yeah.

Nic

And I think this is the first time in the movie that someone tells him that directly.

Steve

And it happened several times.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

So he started. He's, like, tripping out. He's down, like, in the party again, and he starts noticing these weird monsters and stuff in the crowd. And again, it's like.

Nic

Like, tentacles and just, like, really weird, gross shapes.

Steve

People with no mouths and things.

Nic

And.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nic

And then, you know, one of them is now all of a sudden grinding up against Jezebel Girlfriend and, like, you know these weird tendrils are all over her.

Nic

And then it ends up like stabbing a horn through her neck.

Steve

Yeah, yeah. It's very freaky.

Nic

So he's flipping out and he's on the floor.

Steve

Yes, absolutely loses it.

Steve

And he is. Ends up on the floor. The strobe light is going like all the kind of crazy stuff is happening. He ends up on the floor. Basically people looking over him.

Steve

And then we hard cut to the apartment, their home. He's in bed. She's kind of yelling at him. Like I'm so embarrassed, I was so mortified. All this stuff.

Steve

But she's also taking his temperature. Yeah. Or he's got the thermometer in his mouth and she goes to look at it and I'll be honest with you, I couldn't read the thing. It's an old style mercury thermometer. I couldn't read it.

Steve

But she gets freaked out by. Because apparently it's, it's buried. It's basically all the way. And the thing went to apparently 106.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

And that's bad. Like I don't know. I don't know. Folks out there, you know, we're taught. I know, I learned as a first time dad.

Steve

Oh. Babies sometimes have super high temperatures and it's not crazy like they can have a little bit higher. But anybody, anybody that high, that's freaking date. You're microwaving your brain at that point. That's super scary.

Steve

So yes, basically she gets advice from a doctor who says he's not going.

Nic

To survive the right.

Steve

Take him to the hospital, he won't survive. So. So she starts getting ice from their neighbors in the apartment.

Steve

They throw him into an ice bath. And it looks horrifying. Like it really is just like, you know, it's the right thing for him. But he's obviously when you have a fever, I mean I've never had a fever that high but you know, I've had 103, 104, like bad fevers. And you know, when you have a high fever you feel hot and cold.

Steve

Right. You feel just, just everything sucks, everything hurts.

Nic

You reject the thing that like your body actually needs. Absolutely.

Steve

And so they're shoving them into this.

Nic

Ice bath and he's naked and they're like carrying his, you know, limp body and all his neighbors are there and it's just, I mean that in itself.

Steve

Is also a nightmare. Absolutely. Yeah. But, but it's, you know, and he's six foot what, four?

Steve

Right. So he's this huge gangly dude, you're trying to get completely submerged in his ice bath. But yeah, just an absolute brutal. Brutal thing to. To watch and to have him go through.

Steve

And yeah, one. One more note during the brutal ice bath is just what is a dream and what is real? It's still very, very unclear.

Nic

Yeah, for sure.

Steve

In the movie.

Steve

But yeah.

Nic

Oh, one thing with the neighbors. So. So they're in there and. And Jazz's going and getting ice from the neighbors, which this is a good display of, like, neighborly goodness.

Steve

Absolutely.

Nic

I mean, they're coming together, but one of the neighbors comes in with a whole bunch of ice cubes, and Jacob's in the tub and she's dumping him from so high. Like, dude, you trying to make him. He's having a dream that he was in the world's largest hail storm. Like, what are you doing?

Nic

But I guess what's going to hurt him if he's got 106 fever. Yeah, but, yeah, so they. They. He's in the tub and then all of a sudden he, like, wakes up in the hospital.

Steve

Right.

Steve

Isn't that.

Nic

I think he wakes up in his bed. So he's in the bed with his ex.

Steve

Right. Which the person we're to understand is his ex wife.

Steve

We're clearly still together. And he makes a comment about having a horrible nightmare. Yeah, I was even. I even had a girlfriend. Like, you weren't with me or whatever.

Steve

And he mentions, you know, Jesse from work, whatever. And I think he even said something, she had great thighs or some kind of comment, you know, but he's clearly playing it off. And then Macaulay Culkin runs in to the room, and so he's alive. And now it's like, okay, again, is this a dream, right? Or is the other stuff a dream or a nightmare or whatever?

Nic

And if it is, then like, what part of it was. Because Vietnam didn't necessarily include Jezebel, so he could have had Vietnam and maybe no dead son. And maybe, maybe, like, yeah, you're all over the place.

Steve

But I think at this point, it even feels more like if what he just, quote, woke up into, right into this bed in this room with this woman and this son, whatever, these kids. Because he also goes and puts his son back to bed, and the other two boys are there, so he's got all the whole family's together.

Steve

Right. If that's real, then I feel like he didn't even go to Vietnam. Right. Because then it's like the whole nightmare is about is everything to this point is what it feels like but then I have a note very quickly that says, okay, so Sarah and the kid was a dream. Which is.

Steve

Which is, I think is. Then he like wakes up again and he's back in the apartment. Or now.

Nic

Now he's in the hospital, comes to. So basically he's.

Nic

He tells his wife, right? And you know, he's saying that this stuff was a dream. And he says something about like, there were demons, right, Burning up. And then. And then after the scene where he goes and sees his boys, his three boys and everything, he kind of comes to back in the tub.

Nic

So we see him in the tub, like, kind of after his body has calmed down enough for him to be like, conscious again. But he's clearly in the apartment that he shares with Jezebel.

Steve

Right? Which makes it seem much clearer.

Nic

The ex wife stuff, the alive cult kid was a dream.

Steve

That's a dream. Yeah, exactly. So that seems pretty clear. But basically this is. This is one of the spots where again, he kind of asks Jezebel, like, like, did I die?

Steve

Am I dead? Like, where? And she's like, no, you're not dead. And I wrote in my notes, yes, he is. He is dead.

Steve

And this is hell. And it's like, I don't Obviously didn't know at the time or even not sure necessarily that the ending tells us exactly what we need to know. But yeah, is he dead? Is he alive? Is this hell?

Steve

Is this purgatory? What is going on? But it's clear that this isn't real real. You know what I mean? That definitely feels like there's something more happening at this point.

Steve

And so he then, I believe, gets a phone call from a. A former squad mate of his that we're.

Nic

So it's a non buddy named Paul.

Steve

Right, right.

Nic

Who basically just says, you know, he needs to talk.

Steve

Yeah, Jake, I need to talk to you. And he's like. Doesn't really say what about. He's like, I need to talk to you.

Nic

And he says.

Nic

I think this is what he says when. When he meets the guy. Right? So he. He gets together with Paul because you can't ever just have like the two sentences you need to exchange over the phone.

Steve

Right?

Nic

You got to make sure you get together. It's like some dingy bar that serves like, bad brisket sandwiches.

Steve

The phone might be tapped.

Nic

Yeah, they might be listening.

Nic

That's true. Hey, that's right. So, yeah, so Paul is basically like. Like. I don't know how to say this, but like, I'm going to hell.

Nic

They're coming after me.

Steve

Yeah. Creatures, demons.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Basically says exact stuff that Jake's been, been experiencing and he's, you know, basically corroborates like everything that Jake's been seeing.

Steve

So he's like, oh my God. Well, that's crazy. Like, but they go, you know, he freaks out a little bit in the bar. They go to head out and they go to Paul's car and he gets into the car but Jake stops. I can't remember exactly why he doesn't follow him right behind him.

Steve

Right, Isn't he, He's kind of a few steps away.

Nic

He's like waving goodbye to I guess.

Steve

Yeah, is what it is. But then Paul goes to turn his car on and it blows up. Car bomb.

Steve

Bye. Bye. But there's actually another man in the scene who kind of pulls Jake away as he's trying to head towards the car as it's exploding. He kind of, I don't know if he saves him, if Jake ever would have gotten close enough to really get hurt. But he kind of pulls him down, pulls him away from the explosion and then gets up and sprints off and we don't see him again in that scene or whatever.

Steve

And Jake doesn't see him. He kind of happens behind him and he's obviously focused on the carnage ahead of him.

Nic

Yeah. If anyone listening has a friend from their shady past who might be meeting to help get to the bottom of some kind of deep seated secret. Don't walk them to their car when they meet.

Steve

Yeah, I agree.

Nic

That's a good rule of thumb. It's a, it's a 2 dads 1 movie rule is you 50ft from the car at all times.

Steve

That's a good idea. That's definitely, that's definitely smart.

Steve

And never go to the second location, folks. Always remember that. Yeah, yeah.

Nic

So, yeah. So now Jacob like knows this thing has happened to Paul and he starts kind of getting in touch with his other non buddies that he can get in touch with.

Nic

And he's saying like, this is what Paul told me, this is what I'm going through. And all the guys are pretty much like, like saying, yeah, dude, something's off. Like maybe not the exact same thing's happening to them, but like, yeah, I know what you're talking about.

Steve

There's like one platoon mate who is, seems kind of like completely unfamiliar with the things that they're talking about. There's like one guy that's kind of like, what are y' all talking about?

Steve

That's like, that sounds crazy. I've never dealt with anything like that. But like, yeah, almost all of them are, you know, basically saying the same kind of stuff. Right? Where it's like, yeah, I'm seeing things.

Steve

Yeah, I think I saw, I think somebody was following me. Me. I think this, I think that. And so they decide that they're going to go basically like get a lawyer, like sue the government, sue the army. I think is kind of.

Nic

Yeah. So I think they decided that, like, what happened is there's something that was done to us that we were not told about. Like, either something was experimented on us or we were exposed to something that they didn't tell us about, so we couldn't do anything even if it was accidental.

Steve

Like, sure, yeah.

Nic

But like at the very end, very least, like, they're withholding what actually happened to us from us.

Steve

Right.

Nic

So they want to find the truth discovery. We need all this here. So let's go to like the lowest budget seeming attorney that we could find.

Steve

Which shockingly, I think a very, very accurate kind of casting.

Steve

The cheapest lawyer you can find in New York, played by Jason Alexander. Love it. So they're, they're off to see Art Vandelay and, and yeah, they basically talk to him. And at first, you know, he's completely like, guys, this sounds crazy, like, whatever. But also.

Steve

So they're all kind of willing to, you know, go on record about stuff. And so he's convinced, he's like, okay, if you're all willing to give statements and, and you know, go on record with what you've seen and what you know and everything, then yeah, we'll, we'll see where this goes. Right. So, so there's, there's that and they, they kind of all had, you know, they leave the lawyer's office ready to, to chat.

Nic

Yeah.

Nic

And then, you know, so, so very quickly after that, we don't get to live in the, in the dream world with the lawyers helping them for very long because then he finds out Jason Alexander's character. I'm not taking the case.

Steve

Yes, he backs out. He leaves like a voicemail or something, like very brief.

Nic

And he's not making himself accessible for follow up questions or whatever.

Nic

And it turns out basically the other guy's backed out. And what Alexander says is like, we looked into you guys and there's no record that any of you guys were.

Steve

In Vietnam or even in Vietnam.

Nic

So now it's like, okay, we're feeling extra fucking crazy because our records were deleted or we are crazy. Like, who the hell knows?

Steve

Yeah, good. So, yeah, so he Goes to Jacob. Remember, he's out on the street or whatever because he gets grabbed and put into a car.

Steve

Something really strange happened. I don't know what I was. I don't know what was happening to me at the time I was watching this, but I thought that there's. There's two goons and one of them is a bigger guy. I thought it was Danny Aiello at first, and I thought, oh, wow, it's this chiropractor.

Steve

And then it's like, no, wait, that's a different actor. That's not that guy. But like, he looked so similar initially to me, to Danny Aiello's character. I thought there was like, oh, this is like the Truman showing of this where it's like the guy who's like playing the chiropractor role is like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I just got two guys confused.

Steve

That's not at all what happens.

Steve

Oh, well. But basically he has to, like, defend himself in the car. You know, he's like, these guys are basically telling him, like, you know, knock it off. Like, quit looking or something like that. Right, whatever.

Steve

And he basically fights them off. Like, it's a really cool. In car fight scene.

Nic

It was like a max Katie level ability to fight three guys off. You know, he really.

Nic

Yeah, he did a hell of a job. And then he ends up getting dumped off, like tossed out of the car, kind of at the feet of like a very grungy looking Salvation Army Santa.

Steve

Claus ringing the bell, looking for donations, who robs him? Which is great because he can't move right now. He's basically throwing his back out.

Steve

He can't move. And so he's just laying there.

Nic

That's right.

Steve

His back's all screwed up. And the Santa, like, steals his wallet, which it's like.

Steve

Yeah, it's got money in it. It's got his id. It's probably got some like, you know, I don't know, credit card or something. It's 1990, maybe not, but like, whatever. It's got that picture of his son, right?

Steve

That's the thing.

Nic

That's the thing that matters the most.

Steve

Is huge to him. And so then he. Next thing we see is we cut to him on a.

Steve

On a stretcher, right?

Nic

Being rolled through the most horrifying.

Steve

Have you ever seen Super Troopers?

Nic

Yes.

Steve

Okay, no, no, sorry, not Super Troopers.

Steve

What's the other one? Beer festival. Same guys?

Nic

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steve

And they're walking to the beer fest games through this bizarre German underground with all kinds of weird shit happening around them.

Nic

Yes.

Steve

I now believe that is a direct reference to Jacob's life. Wow. I never knew that before.

Nic

But, like, that is a great.

Nic

That's a great point.

Steve

There's even, like, some guy on a bike in that scene because that's one.

Nic

Of the things he sees is like a mangled bike.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

Oh, my God.

Nic

So, yeah, that keeps getting worse and worse. And, like, as a guy, it's important that you pointed this out as a guy whose back is thrown out, who cannot move.

Steve

Right.

Nic

Like, he can't sit up off this girl. He can't get out of here.

Nic

So he's just having to see the most horrifying in the most confusing place with people who don't believe him because he's saying stuff like, Santa Claus stole my wallet.

Steve

Exactly.

Nic

Like, what are they going to do?

Steve

Well, and then he's like, in an area where there are literal body parts and human viscera on the floor that the stretcher is being pushed through. Yeah.

Steve

But also above them is like, some kind of chain link fence and there are people on that looking down and. Which wouldn't make any sense in any actual, like, medical facility of any kind ever. No. But, yeah, that was weird.

Nic

Reminded me of the.

Nic

The prison cells in Face off where they're in this, like, cell where you have, like a fence top to like.

Steve

Oh, my God. Exactly. Yeah.

Nic

But it's just like.

Nic

It's so haunting.

Steve

Yes.

Nic

And he basically is, you know, restrained on the table.

Steve

Right.

Nic

So there's body parts on the floor.

Nic

Sometimes he's seeing these other visions of, like, the faceless or this kind of like shaking, vibrating head thing. And he gets restrained on the table. And the doctor, he's like, I want to go home. I want to go home. And the doctor says, this is your home.

Steve

You're dead. Nowhere to go. Yeah, you're dead. Yeah. I will say real quick, just like this, this scene in particular, the sort of vibe of this scene, the feeling that this scene gives me was one of the things I read a lot after watching the movie about how the effects in this movie and sort of the vibe of this movie really informed the video game Silent Hill.

Steve

I don't know if you ever played Silent Hill, but there are, like, these faceless characters. They're like crazy looking, weird nurses. There's a lot of, like, viscera all over places and, you know, old mental and physical hospitals that you end up having to explore in different ways. And so this scene in particular really gave a mad Silent Hill vibe. Very creepy, very spooky.

Steve

And it's Clear that, you know, the creators of the game were well influenced by Jacob's ladder. But the crazy thing about this scene, right after all that stuff we see through is that the doctor has an assistant, and it's Jezebel. It's Jesse, his girlfriend. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So now, again, I'm taking, like, watching this movie.

Steve

I'm taking mental stock with myself. Is this a dream? Was the other stuff a dream? Is none of it a dream? And he is dead and he's in hell, and, like, Jeze's a demon.

Steve

Like, what is the. There are so many possible explanations for this, and we're not given any of them. Yeah, right. Which is like, fine, let's just keep watching. But, like, it really is like, okay, I am.

Nic

Keeps throwing stuff.

Steve

Even more so. Not. I'm even more so convinced now that I don't know what the hell's going on. Right?

Steve

That's the only thing any. Any previous theory I had is now getting blown away by this. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nic

So, yeah, after the scene, he kind of passes out after, like, being restrained on the table. And seeing Jezebel is, like, one of the last things that he sees there.

Nic

And then he comes to in the hospital, and his ex and the two surviving sons are there visiting. So now it's like, okay, we're in a world where the Macaulay Culkin character is dead again.

Steve

Right?

Nic

And while they're at the hospital, I think the chiropractor, Danny Aiello shows up to be like, you know, get out. You guys are doing it wrong.

Nic

I love that the chiropractor has the authority to, like, commandeer a patient, you know, from a real doctor.

Steve

Right. Which he doesn't. Clearly. They're trying to stop him, and he just forces way through.

Steve

To me, this looked like the beginnings of a new action series. Sort of like the Accountant with Ben Affleck. We need the chiropractor as, like, an action star.

Nic

Just adjusting everyone. Yeah.

Steve

I don't know if Danny Aiello's alive anymore, but, like, if we go back.

Nic

To 1990 hologram Danny Aiello. Danny Aiello III. His grandson.

Steve

Exactly.

Steve

Do something. But, yeah, we could get the chiropractor and get a crazy, crazy action scene. But yeah.

Nic

Yeah. So he takes him.

Nic

He takes him out of there, and he's back at the chiropractor's office, right? And the chiropractor starts telling him. He said he's talking about the demons and things that he sees, and he says, you know what I heard about death is that you're going to see demons if you're frightened of dying and you're holding on because basically, like, hell is not burning your soul. It's like burning away the things that you need to let go before your soul can be free or right.

Steve

Something like that.

Nic

Which is a nice thing to say to somebody who feels like they're actually going to go to hell.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

They believe in that. They're like, okay, that's good.

Steve

As a man who, when, as a kid took, you know, probably seven or eight years of catechism classes with my Catholic church, I don't remember any part of that particular.

Steve

You know, that's not really part of the mythology as far as I remember. But hey, you know, make up your own shit.

Nic

That's how every religion works, is just do your own version of it. But yeah, so, I mean, this is kind of again, hammering home the point of, like, what's happening to Jacob.

Steve

Yeah.

Steve

And I think, and this is the point where I feel like it's safe to say at this point, you know, that there. There isn't a possible spoiler alert after this. This gives away the ending. Yeah. Because.

Steve

Because what Daini Aiello says here is exactly what ends up being true, is that he does need to just let go of the things that he's holding on to so that he can die. I guess the only question I still had at this point was like, okay, either. I literally like, wrote this down too. Like, either he's in purgatory. Like he has died and is in purgatory and is dealing with.

Steve

Dealing with that or whatever is like, purgatory, right? Yeah. Or he's not yet dead.

Nic

Right.

Steve

But he's going to die.

Steve

Right. And so, you know, and again, we'll. We'll obviously get to the ending of the ending, but, like, that is basically what the reality is, is that through all this he is just on, you know, a stretcher. They're trying to help him. He's still literally in the Mekong Delta.

Steve

Right? Yeah, but. But this was. When Danny is character says this. I think the disappointing part for me in retrospect, is that this was like only about halfway through the movie.

Steve

A little over halfway through, through the movie, but, like, not that far. I don't know.

Nic

We still had a lot of movies know that and still watch the rest and.

Steve

Exactly. I feel like, you know, unless they were hoping that by saying it, then it would feel like a false lead.

Steve

You know what I mean? Like, maybe that was their thinking, but like to me, it made too much sense. It was like, oh, no, that sounds like exactly what's happening.

Nic

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Especially like watching this kind of with an analytical eye, like knowing that I'm going to be talking about this after the fact, you kind of.

Nic

Of think about it differently as you're watching rather than like sit back and let it wash over you.

Steve

No, that's a good point. For sure. Yeah.

Nic

So, yeah.

Nic

So he, you know, once again, Danny Aiello, the miracle worker, the only good kind of doctor, the chiropractor gets him walking again and he's up. Yeah. So I mean, his back problem just seems atrocious like that it could throw him off completely. So he's going through a box of memories that he has and his house. And one of the things that he has is a letter from Gabe.

Steve

That's the son that passed.

Nic

So that was like, you know, really meaningful thing from him to.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

For him to come across here.

Steve

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Nic

And then I think this is where he's interrupted. He gets another phone call basically.

Steve

Right.

Nic

And so his non buddies have all kind of bailed on him. He's alone once again.

Nic

And he gets a call from this guy who's like, look, I was in Saigon, I was working in like the chemical warfare division and top secret stuff and we ran experiments on your platoon or whatever during that time. And it turns out this is the guy who pulled him away from Paul's car bomb.

Steve

That's right, it's the car bomb guy. They go walking together and end up kind of in a little alley where they can kind of talk privately. And he lays out this whole thing about, we created this drug.

Steve

It was like a chemical warfare drug that with the idea behind it is that it would turn people into superstitions, soldiers, that it would. You would get rid of all of your sort of like inhibitions about rage and killing and it would make American soldiers more effective. Right. But when they tested it on POWs, which is horrific in and of itself, they literally ripped each other apart. Yeah.

Steve

Like it was. It basically it was a failure. It was like, well, no, this is so uncontrollable. Right, right. This isn't going to work.

Steve

And yet they were like, yeah, but if we. That was a large dose. What if we micro dose it? We'll go ahead and use our own guys just to test it out. Maybe it'll work.

Steve

Well, yeah, he sell, he tells him, like, you know, you all attacked each other. Yeah. There was no, there was no attack on your camp that Day, like, you got this dosage in your food and you attacked each other. And that's. And that's like all the chaos from that day was.

Steve

Was y' all just going at each other. That's it. And it was horrific. And it's like. And it's just the absolute craziness.

Steve

Just absolute craziness. Yeah.

Nic

Yeah. I mean, and. And the way that he kind of described how the.

Nic

The POWs acted, that it just seems like when you hear about like. Like chimpanzees, like literally ripping a person's face, that just. People just become violent to a degree. That's not like closed fists anymore. It's like we're trying to rip people apart.

Steve

Much more primal.

Nic

Really. Insane.

Steve

Yep.

Nic

Absolutely.

Nic

Yeah. So. So Jacob's battalion had it and they all killed each other. Now I forget what happens here. There's something about angels pulling him towards heaven.

Steve

Yeah, it's. I don't. The next thing I have is the doorman because so he. He ends up going, but I don't remember yet, as he talked to somebody in between. Because, like, literally the next note I have is just.

Steve

Is about Sam the doorman. So he goes to this. He goes to like, this other apartment building we haven't seen yet, basically, right? And I don't know if something happened in between talking to the chemical guy and this, but basically he goes. And I thought the doorman looked sus.

Steve

I was like, not sure what to believe about this. But he goes up to the doorman, basically asks like, hey, should I call up to let him know you're coming?

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

So it seems like, okay, so he's going to visit his, like, old home, right? Where his ex or separated wife, whatever, Sarah, and the two boys, he still has, like, they live there, right?

Steve

So he does that and he goes up the stairs or up the elevator or whatever, and he comes in and it's this gorgeous, like two story townhouse apartment.

Nic

Oh, yeah.

Steve

Big, big place.

Nic

Like a Roy family. Not like one of the main people, but like some second cousin would have that.

Steve

This is. This is. This is like the place cousin Greg gets after Tom becomes CEO, you know? But no, like, my note here is basically, oh, Mac is back. Is there another nightmare?

Steve

Because Gabriel, his son, comes down the stairs and it's like, is he dreaming again? Is this a nightmare? Like, what's going on? And it was so funny because what I did not realize. And actually looking back, like, the thing about Danny Aiello telling him about the demons and the angels and all this stuff, it's like, really was pretty late in the movie, later than I realized when we were talking about it a minute ago, because it's like, what.

Steve

What again? Is this a nightmare? Is this a dream? What's happening? And then it's, like, kind of dawned on me as he was interacting with his son that it's like, oh, I think this is.

Steve

This is heaven. Yeah, Right. Because now he's in a familiar place, whereas all he had been in were very unfamiliar, very strange places, really, from the subway station. Even his apartment he shared with Jesse was, like, a little bit of an odd place. But, like, the subway station station, the party, that crazy, crazy hospital, like, whatever, all these things.

Steve

And now he's in this. This space that is a space he knows and a space that he's comfortable in. And then his boy is there, and it's like, oh, well, so this probably is heaven. And that's when we get a couple more flashbacks back to Vietnam, a little more detail about the attack on him. Who did it?

Steve

It was one of his squad mates. Right. It was clearly an American soldier. It's not like he was attacked by, you know, Viet Cong or anything else. And then he's being, like, airlifted.

Steve

They're trying to help him. And it's like, basically, that's it. Yeah, he's gone.

Nic

And the guys are kind of walking away from him in, like, the field hospital as he kind of passes and just. They say, yeah, like, he really put up a fight.

Steve

He put up a fight.

Nic

He's gone.

Steve

So it's. It's. And again, I don't.

Steve

I don't think it counts as a twist ending, because I realized many pages ago in my notes, like, I had. I said, no, he's actually.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Which I guess technically at that time, he was. During the course of the story of the movie, he is alive.

Steve

He is clinging to life. And it is upon reaching his home and seeing his son who's passed, that's when he goes, okay, I can just let go. Yeah. Which is really sweet. I don't usually love movies that in general, are based around, oh, everything was a dream or everything was a nightmare or everything was fake.

Steve

Yeah. This is clearly one of those things, right? Literally, everything from the moment that he is stabbed, that we see him at the very beginning, movie stabbed, until the moment that we're back there and the army doctor declares him dead. Everything that happened between those two things is not real. It just happened in his head.

Steve

So normally I kind of hate that. That's not usually how I like my stories to Go. But I thought this was very well done. And because the whole point of it, I think, was what happens when we die. It kind of had to go this way.

Steve

Right. There's not really another way to do this story.

Nic

No. And with, like, if you get it. Yeah.

Nic

It's important to kind of decide, do you think this was supposed to be a twist ending or not?

Steve

Right.

Nic

Because if it was, then it's kind of weak because the breadcrumbs they laid earlier were more like a third of a baguette in size, you know? Exactly. So it's not like.

Nic

It's not like this big surprise. But, yeah, I think it's like, the point of this movie is a couple things. Like, one, just the progression that your brain might go through when you die and just how it's not comforting to watch this. I mean, ultimately, he gets to be in heaven with his son. Unless that's just the last thing he hallucinates before it just goes fully black.

Nic

There is that, you know, so, like. So you still don't know. But one thing that I remember thinking when I first saw this, and I wasn't trying to pick up on, like, the clues as much, so I did kind of see the end as more of a twist. And I was almost thinking, like, is this about how the guys that went to Vietnam because they were never the same when they came back, all effectively died there, even if they went on to live after the fact. Like, this movie was written in 1980.

Steve

Okay.

Nic

And it didn't come out until 1990. We were talking about that a little bit, that the script was around for a long time. So, like, closer to the war, you're dealing a lot with, like, the direct effects of, like, these guys who have come back from there and, like, they can't get their life together and their families are in shambles and their jobs are fucked up and they're getting trapped in subways or whatever.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

But, like. But I don't know if that was like, another type of metaphor to look at. This is like, Vietnam. No. You know, and destroyed our country in a lot of ways, like, the things that we stood for or whatever to go through that.

Nic

So, yeah, I think that it was just about, like, this guy's, like, psychological journey towards the afterlife.

Steve

Yeah. Well, it kind of builds on or plays on the idea of, you know, what is the self like? Like, what makes us ourselves? And can that be killed without us dying?

Steve

Right. Like. Like. Like, are we. This after the kind of traumatic experience that many of the soldiers who went over To Vietnam.

Steve

Had. When they came back, were they in any real sense the same person? Yeah. Right. And what does it mean to be quote, the same person?

Steve

We all obviously were always evolving and learning things and changing at least slightly, you know, whatever. But I do feel like I am like the same person that I've been my entire adult life for the most part outside of the details of, you know, becoming a father, becoming husband, whatever. Different times.

Nic

But, but is there like something that can fully alter the type of person that you are?

Steve

Yeah.

Steve

Well. And how much, how much change makes you someone else?

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Right. I mean that's the thing.

Steve

Because obviously. Yeah. The kind of, of acute but severe trauma that they have to go through to like get. Just come home from that. Yeah.

Steve

Which obviously many of them didn't had to kind of irreparably change you.

Nic

Sure. Even aside from like the, the chemical warfare. But it's like the chemical warfare is kind of a stand in for just like what having to go and kill people and watch people be killed alongside you does to you psychologically. So I don't even need a chemical that's produced outside of my own brain.

Nic

Like my brain. Brain is gonna me up really bad.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

If I have to live through that for a number of years, you know.

Steve

Well, and I gotta, I gotta say on this movie in particular, I think we have to accept the possibility that there wasn't anything given to them.

Steve

There was no chemical warfare, there was no testing whatever. Because that was all in his imagination. That that person explained it and that very well could have been his own subconscious trying to explain the situation to him.

Nic

Well, because by 1971, that's for sure going around.

Steve

Sure.

Nic

And we know now after, after the fact, like this is a thing that is done, you know, like whatever's been like there's been bits and pieces of this admitted to, but like of course we're going to send hundreds of thousands of people to get killed. We don't care how they get killed. So yeah, if we think something's going to give an advantage, we're going to do it. So yeah, it might be just like, okay, the guys around here were kind of freaking out a week ago about how there might be some chemicals. And that's part of my post death hallucination.

Steve

Right. Yeah. Because it's like we almost have to believe that that exactly what he was told can't be the truth.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

Right.

Steve

Because otherwise how would he know? He couldn't possibly know. So it's like whatever did happen, it seems like that couldn't be it. But I also don't think that was the intention of the screenwriter. I feel like we, the audience, were supposed to just accept that as fact.

Steve

But I'm kind of like, no, I can't trust. This is an unreliable narrator. From the beginning of the end. I can't trust anything. Cause we all know in his head.

Nic

Like, how the lawsuit went sideways with him and his other buddies, so he could never really get any real legal satisfaction. That that was real. And then this other character dips in towards the end to be like, by the way, I was the scientist. I did all that shit. It was real.

Nic

We can go ahead and tie that up. So maybe he's just like, I'm thinking about too much stuff as I'm dying. I need to wrap something up.

Steve

That's probably true. Yeah.

Steve

A little subconscious loose ends issues.

Nic

Yeah.

Steve

All right, well, shit.

Nic

That is.

Steve

That's Jacob's ladder, man.

Nic

That's Jacob's ladder. All right, well, wild ride. Yeah. Well, this was my. My pick.

Nic

So I guess I'll. I'll go first here. Yeah. I'm glad we watched this again. Again, you know, not a fun movie.

Nic

I'm not gonna. Not gonna bring it out on date night. Like, it's. It's not a popcorn flick. It's definitely.

Nic

I hope it's been a while since you've eaten and you don't need to eat soon flick.

Steve

Yeah.

Nic

Really gruesome effects. Like, reminds me a lot of, like, David Cronenberg type stuff where it's really. I don't know if you ever saw that movie.

Nic

Existence has a lot of just grotesque, like, tentacle alien, gooey shit. Super well done. I love Tim Robbins, but again, yeah, it's hard to, like, decide how to rate this because it's not a good fun time.

Steve

No.

Nic

But I am very impressed at the art that was created.

Steve

Sure.

Nic

And what do I do with that? And I think I'm gonna. I'm gonna probably wimp out. And I'm gonna give this one a.

Nic

A three and a half out of five. I think that the Vietnam thing always interested me in movies, too. And I like movies where it's not just about Vietnam, where it's part of it. Another great one, Dead Presidents, which we might go to at a time where it kind of shows like, yeah, Vietnam. But then also, this is how it affected these people's lives after they were gone from there.

Steve

Right.

Nic

So I like that element of it. So it was a good, like, sprinkling of it without being a real. Real war movie. Although it's kind of a movie about, like, meta.

Nic

The effects of war potentially on. On people. Yeah. So I'm going to give this a three and a half. I think it's worth watching if you can sit through it.

Nic

It's definitely. It's well done and it's interesting, and I'm not going to watch it again for a very long time.

Steve

Yeah, it's so funny. I should mention listener Nic and I do not discuss ahead of time, before we even get to this point, what our scores are for these movies. And so it.

Steve

I just think it's funny when this happens where I also am giving you three and a half out of five.

Nic

All right.

Steve

To Jacob's Ladder. And for me, the reasoning. Yeah.

Steve

Is kind of similar. It's like, I can absolutely appreciate the film. I do think that outside of Tim Robbins, there's nothing particularly blown. Nothing blew me away from the acting standpoint. The script is an interesting story, but.

Steve

But otherwise fairly unremarkable as, like, a screenplay, you know, and then, yeah, effects were great. The. Like I said, I think this. This was the kind of movie whose effects really inspired other art, in particular the Silent Hill games clearly inspired by this. And so, you know, lots of great stuff to go around, but, like, also, to me, it matters that I wouldn't really watch it again.

Steve

It's just not something that I can be like, oh, y' all should go out and watch Jacob's Ladder. It's like, look, if you've never seen it and you have a hankering for, like, a real mindfuck movie. Yeah, this is good. It's well done. It will screw with your head.

Steve

Of course, if you haven't seen it, you just listen to our podcast. You probably don't need to watch it now. Yeah. But. Yeah, so I'm not.

Steve

But I'm not going to run out and tell people, oh, my God, have you guys seen this movie? Jacob's Ladder, from 35 years ago. You got to go see it. So, yeah, so I'm also a three and a half. It's a good movie.

Steve

It's not a great movie, but it's well done and it is an interesting premise. I think they give away too much of what could have been the twist too early. They kind of hint at it too aggressively. And I think it would have been much better to not give us any indications that he's maybe dead until the very end and then just drop it on us like a bomb. That would have been very interesting and probably would have gotten me up to like a 4 or so.

Nic

We're doing an outdoor movie night. We're either doing Moana 2 or Jacob's Ladder. Family friendly. So, yeah, we'll watch it again and decide.

Steve

Yeah, just make sure it's.

Steve

It's like, right around Halloween. You got the fog machine going. Let's make it as spooky as possible. For sure. So, okay, so the two dads are seven out of ten on Jacob's Ladder.

Nic

All right, well, that was a good spooky one, that. The second one of Spooktober. And Steve, Steve, you were picking again. You're picking your second scary movie for us.

Steve

I am.

Steve

It is Shocktoberfest.

Nic

Shocktoberfest.

Steve

And I'm gonna.

Nic

I'm trying to rebrand. I'm going sideways.

Steve

It's all good. So, yeah, one of our. This is our first theme month, Shocktoberfest, where we are sticking with the spooky and the scary for the entire month of October. And to that end, I'm gonna pick us a movie that I think is really just. I don't know.

Steve

How do I say this? It's one of the best scary movies of all time. Of all time. Time.

Nic

All right.

Steve

From 1982, this is a director we've already seen here on the podcast. And this is a movie that I only saw, I think, maybe three or four years ago. It was like. Like, as the pandemic was, like, washing over everybody in this country around the world, I was like, you know what? I have not.

Steve

There are. There are many great classic horror movies I haven't seen. I'm gonna go back and watch a bunch of stuff. Yeah. And try to figure out what do people love that I haven't seen yet.

Steve

So I. I saw a bunch of stuff like, oh, I had seen Nightmare on Elm street several times and for some reason, the third one a bunch, but I'd never seen the second one. So I went back and watched that. I'd seen Friday the 13th part 2 numerous times with Jason, but I never seen the one before that. When. When it's his mom.

Steve

Right. So I went back on this stuff. And one of the movies that consistently comes up when you ask people, what are the greatest horror movies of all time? A few movies always come up. One is the Exorcist, one of my favorite movies of all time.

Steve

William Freaking fantastic movie. This one is one of the other ones that I think came up more often than anything else. It is John Carpenter's the Thing. So we are going to go back to 1982 and watch the Thing. Kurt Russell, Keith, David, Wolford, Brimley, like, this is a fantastic movie.

Steve

The effects are incredible. The score is officially credited to Ennio Morricone, who did all those great spaghetti western scores. But also Carpenter, clearly very influential on the score.

Nic

His hand was on the piano.

Steve

Oh, my goodness.

Steve

You can take. Can tell those dudens are there.

Nic

That's all.

Steve

That's all Carpenter. So very excited about watching the thing next week.

Nic

I'm excited. I've never seen it. I told you. I, I thought that I had seen it, but I have not seen this, so I cannot wait. And to hear how highly regarded it is by people that I really respect.

Nic

Like, I can't wait to get into this one.

Steve

Yeah, that's fantastic. So that about wraps it up. If you like what you hear, and we hope you do, please consider heading over to Apple or Spotify, leaving us a five star review. It really helps new folks find the show.

Steve

If you want to drop us a line, share your thoughts on an episode, tell us what we got wrong, or suggest a movie we should do next, you can do so at the show@2dads1movie.com. That's the number two and the number one. You can also follow us on Instagram @2dads1movie. Once again, this has been Jacob's Ladder, another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie. I'm Steve.

Nic

And I'm Nic.

Steve

Thank you so much for listening and we will catch you next week.

Nic

Thanks, everyone.