Even a bad trip, and believe me, I've had my share, did not compare to
the fury of the Ladder. The 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? 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. Oh, you remember?
Yeah. 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.
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.
No one can remember that night. I get flashes,
but they don't make sense. What happened?
Was there an offensive? Yeah, couple days
later. It was fierce. But you guys never saw it. There was
an attack there. Was that the fight, right? Yeah,
but now it's a con.
With who?
You killed each other.
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. Nick. Briana.
Hello, everybody. It's another episode of 2Dads. One movie.
I'm Steve. And I'm Nick. 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. I think we can add a lot of effects,
and I gotta do reverb. Yeah. I gotta do. Make it sound like a rock
concert, but yeah. This is our second episode of Shocktoberfest. We. 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, Nick, you picked this for us. Why don't you tell us a little
bit about your history with Jacob's Ladder. 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. 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. 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. Right?
Yeah, yeah. That's one of the classic conflicts of fiction,
right? There's like man versus man, man versus nature, man versus Sel.
This is clearly a man versus self category. Yeah, yeah. And I
always like, you know, Tim Robbins, like, he had a stretch there in the early
90s. Holy moly. From the mid to late 80s. You could go at least back
to Bull Durham and then go from there, like. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, he was
really on fire. So you get some of the best Tim Robbins in this.
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. 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.
For sure. 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.
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. 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. 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. Yeah, because that would have been a draw. I mean,
especially this movie being released a year after Home Alone. Absolutely. I mean, McCall,
you're going to get all the crossover fans of Home Alone. Maybe. Maybe it was
a good idea, actually. Yeah. I don't know. It's between this and my
girl. This guy had a real weird post. Home Alone. Seriously?
Oh, I didn't know he was uncredited. And also I did spot,
like, Eric lasalle, one of his. One of his platoon mates, and Vin.
Reigns, two Dads one Movie, multiple parents award winner.
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. 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. Just like
top to bottom, you know, you're recognizing guys and everything. Absol. 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. Right. So had you
seen this one before? 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. 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.
Right. You know what I mean? That little special effect. Plus you get the ladder
and the lawnmower both appearing in the back of small Toyota pickup trucks and
stuff like that. That's a good point. 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. 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. Oh, nice. 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. 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. 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. I feel like single syllable middle names. Are kind of just
make it the letter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bruce J. Rubin sounds better than Bruce.
Joel, better than BJ R, than probably in high school and stuff. When you're getting
made fun of by. 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. It's. It's a Tim Robbins joint more than anything.
Yeah. Scores very respectable scores across the board. Rotten tomatoes,
a 72%. 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. 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. 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. All right, there you go, Jane and Bob, Nice job.
There you go. 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. 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. 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. It's 1.04%.
Excuse me, 1.04 times its budget.
So we would call that, if not a flop, certainly a significant disappointment. Yeah.
For that. 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. It certainly wasn't like a
crowd pleaser, I don't think. People walking. It's not a date movie. It's not like
a. A fun like Christmas time blockbuster. Like it's
November 2nd and you're going with your family to the movies on Thanksgiving. 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. That was probably the. You can't travel back in
time to actual Halloween. Yeah, right. Well, so, yeah. But you know that. 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. Yeah. You know, this really feels like more of
a ponderous kind of like it's difficult. It's. It's a challenging,
like, there you go. It's a great piece of art, I think, but it's very.
It. It's not supposed to make you feel warm and fuzzy. For sure.
Yes. As you have mentioned on the pod before, like sometimes art
should challenge you. 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. Why don't you kick us off?
Yeah. How the. The movie opens up. All right, so like Steve said, you know,
the first scene that we have in the film, we're in Vietnam or in.
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. 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.
Yeah. And, you know, he's looking around for everything. He needs his
accoutrement to be able to go take a dump in the woods. Right, right.
So that's kind of how it's starting off is like, they're in this situation.
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. I agree with you. There is, though, like. 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. 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.
Right. 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. What a bunch of jerks. 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. Yes, exactly.
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.
No, absolutely. They're. They're giving him. And he's enjoying it. He's like,
oh, what else you guys got for me? So seems like they're all buds and
then we just. It kind of cuts to.
Something's wrong. Just chaos. Yeah, and it's just chaos all of a sudden.
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. 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. 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. 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. Right.
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. 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. 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. And I believe it
just. He wakes up. 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. 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. Right? Yeah. Right.
So then it kind of cuts to, you know, the present day where the
rest of the film is taking place. So. 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. 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. Right. Subway. 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. Like a very odd off putting old
woman. 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. And before he can
get off the train, it looks like that person's got a tail.
Is that. 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. World's biggest horsehair
parasite and the world's biggest insect. 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. And then one
of them says ecstasy. Right. 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? 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.
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. 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. 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.
And he did a terrible job crossing the track. He. He went so slow.
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. 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.
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. And clearly every single
window has somebody staring out at him. Yeah. With a really creepy
ass face. Yeah. They look really strange. 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. This guy's dealing with some shit. Yeah. And he
finally. He finally makes it home. It doesn't really show his. 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. Yeah. His wife is in the shower.
Right. You know, which is good girlfriend. And a theme girlfriend. But there's
a theme, you know, going on through here where. 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. 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.
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. 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. 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. Yeah. And that's a weird place to be
in. And, you know, it's like. It felt very human the way she was playing.
It really was very well. Well done. Yeah. That she didn't find a spot in
the middle. Like, she's going back and forth between. And I. Dude. 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. Yeah. So he
ends up having another kind of terrifying Vietnam dream that she. She wakes
him up from. Yeah. 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?
Yeah. 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. Flashbacks, or are they nightmares? Like, what is he. Like, what did
happen here? And. Which I think is great. 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. Yes.
Right. Which is great. 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. 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. 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. Like, where are we? Like, where are we? 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. Yeah. It doesn't let you get comfortable. No.
So what happened? She actually has received a bunch of a
box full of like, photographs, basically. Right. 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. 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. 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.
Right. Those two burglars got him. That's right, exactly. Those wet
bandits. But yeah. So he is
really affected by this. 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. But you kind of have to
feel. 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. And I don't want
a photograph of the accident that killed him. 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. It's a very Joe from Rounders move. It's worse.
This is worse than Joe. Oh, certainly worse. But it's in the family
of girlfriend behavior that we don't appreciate. This is not Victoria
Bennett. 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. Happy Gilmore. 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. 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.
It seems. 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. 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. Yeah.
How big's the shower? If it's a big enough shower? Multiple heads.
We're doing this. 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.
It's like an airplane battle. Yeah. 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. Yeah. 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. 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. Yeah. 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. 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. Yeah.
But then we get thrown right into some chaos again. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. But. Right.
They're pretty aggressively aiming for him. Well, he's like running down an
alley and they're swerving the whole alley. Yeah, yeah. 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. That's right. Creepy faces. Car almost hit some creepy faces
here. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty wild. 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. Yeah. So he tries to go see his doctor, who's trusted
psychiatrist, who is like a. You know, at the VA Hospital.
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. Carmela Soprano's mom.
Oh, my God, you're right. So we've got Tony's and Carmela's in a couple.
But is that. Was that also then the woman who played the principal in Uncle
Buck. Yes. Molly Russell's wart. Yeah.
Because that's where I recognize her from. But you're absolutely right. She was also Carmela
Soprano's mom. She was a quarter. Why don't you have a rat chew that thing
off your face? Exactly. Go downtown. 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. So she's.
The nurse tells him. There's no record of your. Of that doctor.
Doctor. Yeah, yeah. Like, we don't know what you're talking about. You're not in our
system. Y. Yeah. And he's like, no, like, I know.
This is where I go. I need. I know where his office is. Let me
go back. I'll just walk to his office. It's all good. Like. 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.
What the. Is that exactly. Yeah. And horns or teeth or
something very odd, like, growing out of her. Something like super abnormal
and nightmare. 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. 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. Yeah. 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. Yeah. Blew up a month ago. He died. And it's like, that's pretty
wild. Like, what a wild way to go. Right? Like, that's like. Yeah. Which mobster
did you piss off if your car blows up? Seriously. I mean, it's. It's a
really like crazy, crazy uncommon thing to hear. So that's got to be disturbing.
Yeah. So. 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. Right. About these things that
he. These creatures that he sees. And what he says is these things were like
demons, they weren't human. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're kind of getting this like
sense of is he in hell? Like, what's happening here? Yeah,
yeah. 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. 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?
Right. Like, you know what I mean? Yeah. 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. That's sort of like, we gotta go out for
you. Right. I know you've been traumatized, but the best thing is to go somewhere
that's loud and confusing. Yeah, exactly. With flashing lights, a lot of alcohol, maybe some
illicit drugs of different kinds. This is all absolutely perfectly good. Yeah. 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? That's another
just nightmare. Nightmare thing. Freaky looking, these things everywhere.
Right. And that kind of. 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. So it's like there's an element to,
like, a lot of movies. Like. 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.
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. 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.
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? Yeah, yeah, it's. It's crazy. 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. 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. You're already dead. And it's like, well, that's a little on the nose.
Yeah. And I think this is the first time in the movie that someone tells
him that directly. And it happened several times. Yeah. 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.
Like, tentacles and just, like, really weird, gross shapes. People with no mouths and
things. And. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 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.
And then it ends up like stabbing a horn through her neck. Yeah, yeah.
It's very freaky. So he's flipping out and he's on the floor.
Yes, absolutely loses it. 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. 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. 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. 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.
Yeah. 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. 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. So yes, basically she gets advice from a doctor
who says he's not going. To survive the right. Take him to the hospital,
he won't survive. So. So she starts getting ice from their neighbors in the apartment.
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. Right. You feel just, just everything sucks,
everything hurts. You reject the thing that like your body actually needs.
Absolutely. And so they're shoving them into this. 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. Is also a nightmare.
Absolutely. Yeah. But, but it's, you know, and he's six foot what, four? 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. 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. Yeah, for sure. In the movie. But yeah.
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. Absolutely. 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? 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. Right. Isn't that.
I think he wakes up in his bed.
So he's in the bed with his ex. Right. Which the person we're
to understand is his ex wife. 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. 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? 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. 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.
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.
Which is, I think is. Then he like wakes up again and he's back in
the apartment. Or now. Now he's in the hospital, comes to.
So basically he's. 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.
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. Right? Which makes it seem much clearer. The ex wife
stuff, the alive cult kid was a dream. 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? 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. 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? 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. And so he then, I believe, gets a phone
call from a. A former squad
mate of his that we're. So it's a non buddy named Paul. Right, right.
Who basically just says, you know, he needs to talk. 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. And he says. 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. Right? You got to make sure
you get together. It's like some dingy bar that serves like, bad brisket sandwiches.
The phone might be tapped. Yeah, they might be listening. 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.
They're coming after me. Yeah. Creatures, demons. Yeah. Basically says exact stuff that Jake's
been, been experiencing and he's, you know, basically corroborates like everything that Jake's
been seeing. 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. Right, Isn't he, He's kind of a few steps away.
He's like waving goodbye to I guess. Yeah, is what it is. But then Paul
goes to turn his car on and it blows up. Car bomb. 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. And Jake
doesn't see him. He kind of happens behind him and he's obviously focused on
the carnage ahead of him. 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. Yeah, I agree. 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. That's a good idea. That's definitely, that's definitely smart.
And never go to the second location, folks. Always remember that. Yeah, yeah.
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. 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.
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? 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.
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. 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. Like, sure, yeah. But like
at the very end, very least, like, they're withholding what actually happened to us from
us. Right. 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. Which shockingly, I think a very, very accurate kind of casting.
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. 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. Yeah. 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. Yes, he backs out. He leaves
like a voicemail or something, like very brief. And he's not making himself accessible for
follow up questions or whatever. 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. In Vietnam or
even in Vietnam. 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? 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. 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. 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. That's not at all what
happens. 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. And he basically fights them off.
Like, it's a really cool. In car fight scene. It was like a max
Katie level ability to fight three guys off. You know, he really.
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. 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. He can't move. And so he's just laying there.
That's right. His back's all screwed up. And the Santa, like, steals his wallet,
which it's like. 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?
That's the thing. That's the thing that matters the most. Is huge to him.
And so then he. Next thing we see
is we cut to him on a. On a stretcher, right? Being rolled through the
most horrifying. Have you ever seen Super Troopers? Yes. Okay, no, no, sorry,
not Super Troopers. What's the other one? Beer festival. Same guys? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And they're walking to the beer fest games through this bizarre German
underground with all kinds of weird shit happening around them. Yes. I now believe that
is a direct reference to Jacob's life. Wow. I never knew that before.
But, like, that is a great. That's a great point. There's even,
like, some guy on a bike in that scene because that's one. Of the things
he sees is like a mangled bike. Exactly. Oh, my God.
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. Right. Like, he can't sit up off this girl. He can't get out of
here. 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. Exactly. Like, what are they going to do? 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. 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.
Reminded me of the. The prison cells in Face off where they're in this,
like, cell where you have, like a fence top to like. Oh, my God.
Exactly. Yeah. But it's just like. It's so haunting.
Yes. And he basically is, you know, restrained on
the table. Right. So there's body parts on the floor. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
Keeps throwing stuff. Even more so. Not. I'm even more so
convinced now that I don't know what the hell's going on. Right? That's the only
thing any. Any previous theory I had is now getting blown away by this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. 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. 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. Right?
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. I love that the chiropractor has the authority to,
like, commandeer a patient, you know, from a real doctor. Right. Which he doesn't.
Clearly. They're trying to stop him, and he just forces way through. 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.
Just adjusting everyone. Yeah. I don't know if Danny Aiello's alive anymore, but, like,
if we go back. To 1990 hologram Danny Aiello. Danny Aiello III.
His grandson. Exactly. Do something. But, yeah, we could get the chiropractor and get a
crazy, crazy action scene. But yeah.
Yeah. So he takes him. 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. Something like that.
Which is a nice thing to say to somebody who feels like they're actually
going to go to hell. Yeah. They believe in that. They're like, okay, that's good.
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. You know, that's not really part of the mythology as far as I remember.
But hey, you know, make up your own shit. 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.
Yeah. 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. 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. Dealing with that or whatever
is like, purgatory, right? Yeah. Or he's not yet dead. Right. But he's
going to die. 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.
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. A little over halfway through, through the movie, but, like,
not that far. I don't know. We still had a lot of movies know that
and still watch the rest and. Exactly. I feel like, you know, unless they were
hoping that by saying it, then it would feel like a false
lead. 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. 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. Of think about it differently
as you're watching rather than like sit back and let it wash over you.
No, that's a good point. For sure. Yeah. So, yeah. 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. That's the son that passed.
So that was like, you know, really meaningful thing from him to.
Yeah. For him to come across here. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
And then I think this is where he's interrupted. He gets another phone call basically.
Right. And so his non buddies have all kind of bailed on him. He's alone
once again. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
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. Just absolute
craziness. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and. And the way that he kind of described
how the. 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. Much more primal. Really. Insane. Yep.
Absolutely. 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. 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. 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. 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? Yeah. 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? 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. Oh, yeah. Big, big place. Like a Roy family.
Not like one of the main people, but like some second cousin would have that.
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? 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. 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. 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. 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?
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. They're trying to help him. And it's like,
basically, that's it. Yeah, he's gone. 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. He put up a fight. He's gone. So it's.
It's. And again, I don't. 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. Yeah. Which I guess technically at that time, he was. During the
course of the story of the movie, he is alive. 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. 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. 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. Right. There's not really
another way to do this story. No. And with, like,
if you get it. Yeah. It's important to kind of decide, do you
think this was supposed to be a twist ending or not? Right. 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. 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. 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. Okay. 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. Yeah. 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. So, yeah,
I think that it was just about, like, this guy's, like,
psychological journey towards the afterlife.
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? Right. Like. Like. Like, are we. This after
the kind of traumatic experience that many of the soldiers who went over To Vietnam.
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? 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. But, but is there
like something that can fully alter the type of person that you are? Yeah.
Well. And how much, how much change makes you someone else?
Yeah. Right. I mean that's the thing. 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. Which obviously many of them didn't had to
kind of irreparably change you. 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.
Like my brain. Brain is gonna me up really bad. Yeah. If I have to
live through that for a number of years, you know. 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. 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. Well, because by 1971, that's for sure going
around. Sure. 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. Right. Yeah. Because it's like we almost have to believe
that that exactly what he was told can't be the truth.
Yeah. Right. 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. 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. 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. 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. That's probably true. Yeah. A little subconscious loose
ends issues. Yeah. All right, well, shit. That is. That's Jacob's ladder,
man. That's Jacob's ladder. All right, well, wild ride. Yeah. Well,
this was my. My pick. 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.
I'm not gonna. Not gonna bring it out on date night. Like,
it's. It's not a popcorn flick. It's definitely. I hope it's been a while since
you've eaten and you don't need to eat soon flick. Yeah.
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. 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. No. But I am very impressed at the art that was created. Sure.
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. 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. Right. 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. 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. 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. Yeah,
it's so funny. I should mention listener Nick 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. I just think it's funny when this happens where I also am
giving you three and a half out of five. All right. To Jacob's Ladder.
And for me, the reasoning. Yeah. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Yeah, just make sure it's. 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. 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.
I am. It is Shocktoberfest. Shocktoberfest. And I'm gonna. I'm trying to rebrand.
I'm going sideways. 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. How do I say this?
It's one of the best scary movies of all time. Of all time. Time.
All right. 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.
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. 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. 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. 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.
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. His hand was on the piano.
Oh, my goodness. You can take. Can tell those dudens are there. That's all.
That's all Carpenter. So very excited about watching the thing next week.
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. Like, I can't wait
to get into this one. 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
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folks find the show. 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
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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. And I'm Nick. Thank you so much for
listening and we will catch you next week. Thanks,