Jessabelle, Review: Voodoo in the Bayou

Jessabelle, co-incidentally similar in its title and name of its central character to another recent horror film, Annabelle, follows the time-tested setting of a country house surrounded by a lake (bayou, in this case) and woods, where a solitary woman faces demons that have a bone to pick with her, and with her kith and kin. It has a great-looking heroine with a starry presence, but a plot that is almost absent for 3/4ths of the film, convoluted when it emerges, and undulates jerkily toward the end.

A pregnant Jessie is moving into her fiancé’s house. On the way, they have a car accident, killing the fiancé and Jessie's unborn child, and leaving Jessie unable to walk. The hospital will not discharge Jessie alone, since she still cannot walk, so she calls her father (whom she hasn’t seen since she was a little girl) to pick her up. Back at her Dad’s house in St. Francis, Louisiana, Jessie is given her late mother’s room. Her mother died shortly after childbirth, ostensibly from cancer.

While looking around the room one day, she finds some video tapes in a box labelled ‘Jessabelle’. She plays one and watches her mother talking to Jessabelle (Jessie thinking she means her). On the video, her mother gives her a reading using tarot cards. The first card is Death, which her mother says means "transition". The next card says that she has never left St. Francis and that she is never going to leave—which is untrue for Jessie. The third card is Water. Her mother wonders if she is a swimmer, which is again untrue. She reads that Jessie is not alone, that there is a presence in the house with her, a female who wants her out of the house. Jessie’s Dad shows up then, and destroys the tape; he takes her wheelchair away and throws it in the bayou, warning her not to go snooping anymore.

That night she sees a girl in her room. She reaches out to her, but the figure then disappears. The next day, her Dad has left her mother’s old wheelchair for her, apologising to her for throwing away her own. When he goes out, Jessie watches the next tape. On it, her mother says she spoke to her friend Moses about the reading. Her mother tells Jessie that he said the presence is a demon, and she should stop blaming herself for an accident that happened. Her mother then gives her another reading. Death comes up again, meaning transition, but further reading shows a very horrible death.

Scripted by comedy specialist Robert Ben Garant, it has no comic relief whatsoever, and a rather grim, sad, terrible tale to tell. There is a strong overtone of racial intolerance in southern USA, where he spent some time. There are some large loopholes, especially one about the demon waiting twenty years to take revenge on the Dad, who lives in that very house. Directed and edited by Kevin Greutert (Saw series), the film was slated to release on January 2014. It was later pushed back to an August release date, before it was given a limited theatrical and video-on-demand release on November 7. Jessabelle comes to India in December 2014. Greutert’s inability to helm Paranormal Activity 2 for Blumhouse Productions a few years ago (due to contractual obligations, post-Saw VI) led to him to taking on Jessabelle, for producer Jason Blum, shortly thereafter.

Australian Sarah Snook (Predestination) as Jessie is easy on the eye and suitably pensive/reflective. Her behaviour, however, is ambivalent, and inconsistent with that of a wheel-chair bound young woman, haunted by a ruthless demon, watching highly disturbing videos, and hallucinating about gory bloodshed. Actor-director Joelle Carter (Jumping In, To Be Friends, City of Jerks, Eyes to See), makes an eerie blast-from-the-past as Jessie’s mother. Mumbling dialogue make an otherwise serviceable Mark Webber (Preston), the star of such films as Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and The End of Love and also a director himself, less effective. (The Indian distributors’ representative Priyanka Vaswani asked me if sub-titling would help such films get better comprehension, and thereby lead to better response, and I told her that is no doubt about it). Tight-lipped and mysterious, for a reason, David Andrews (Hannibal, Terminator 3) instills some life in a minor role. As the transfixed Mrs. Davis, Fran Bennett gives you some creeps.

Rating: **

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoBCEdt_BC8