Jacob’s Ladder (1990) is an American psychological horror film directed by Adrian Lyne, produced by Alan Marshall, written by Bruce Joel Rubin and starring Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Peña, and Danny Aiello. The film’s protagonist, Jacob, is a Vietnam veteran whose experiences prior to and during the war result in strange, fragmentary visions and bizarre hallucinations that continue to haunt him. As his ordeal worsens, Jacob desperately attempts to figure out the truth. Though only moderately successful upon release, the film garnered a cult following and its plot and special effects became a source of influence for various other works such as the horror video game franchise Silent Hill.
A remake of the film is coming out this year, changing some of the plot elements into the more recent times. Here, the traumas come from the war in Afghanistan and not Vietnam, besides the fact that the main characters play brothers. David M. Rosenthal, known for the horror thrillers A Single Shot (2013) and The Perfect Guy (2015) is directing. Jeff Buhler and Sarah Thorp have been in charge of the screenplay. Michael Ealy, Nicole Beharie, Jesse Williams, Joseph Sikora, Karla Souza and Guy Burnet star in the remake.
The project of Jacob’s Ladder (2019) was first mentioned back in 2013, where Jeff Buhler was reported to be writing a script for LD Entertainment‘s new version of the original film. According to The Hollywood Reporter, “the producers are looking to make something more akin to an homage and not mimic the original. The plan is to contemporize the story with new situations and characters but still maintain a story that examines issues and poses existential questions“. The original screenplay was submitted to several rewrites before principal photography began on May 2, 2016.
Jacob’s Ladder (2019) is scheduled to be released on August 23, 2019 under Vertical Entertainment. This week the first trailer was published and you can watch it here:
