VHS tapes bring trouble in 'Jessabelle'
<b>Mini-review: 'Jessabelle'</b>
The title "V/H/S" has already been snapped up, but it would have been an ideal title for "Jessabelle," a ghost tale that hinges on messages a now-dead mother left on VHS tapes for her unborn daughter.
"Jessabelle," directed and edited by "Saw" horror veteran Kevin Greutert, comes loaded with gothic charm and southern Louisiana atmosphere. Yet, its meager gross-outs and tepid scares feel disappointingly derivative, and its central premise proves to be so preposterously stupid that it threatens to collapse into comic claptrap.
Appealing Australian actress Sarah Snook stars as the title character Jessie, a happy pregnant wife with a wonderful husband, until a terrible car crash leaves her alone and in a wheelchair.
With no other options, poor Jessie moves back to her rustic, bayou childhood home with her stoic, grumpy daddy Leon (David Andrews), who flies into a rage when she finds and plays old VHS tapes made by her pregnant mother (Joelle Clark) before her birth.
"That thing on the tape is not your mother!" Dad screeches. He's right, but not in the way we're led to believe.
Robert Ben Garant's uninspired screenplay includes not only the popular "projectile-vomiting-of-nasty-fluids" device, but the exhausted horror cliché of supernatural forces ruining a relaxing bath/shower for a naked, vulnerable woman.
A potential romantic subplot involving Jessie's old high school friend (Mark Webber), now married to a grumbling harpy (Larisa Oleynik), feels rushed and tacked on, almost like an afterthought to spice up the characters.
Despite a few scenes fraught with genuine suspense and Snook's strong, centered performance as a wounded woman in survival mode, "Jessabelle" operates on the ridiculous premise that young ghosts actually grow up and mature just like regular people.
Since when do ghosts do that? And if so, can they "die" of old age? Again?
"Jessabelle" opens at the South Barrington 30 theaters. Rated PG-13 for violence. 90 minutes. ★ ★
<i> Dann Gire's Reel Life column runs Fridays in Time out! Follow him on Twitter at @DannGireDHFilm.</i>