JAKOB’S WIFE puts a welcome feminist spin on classic horror tropes [SXSW 2021 review]

Two years after his grisly The Girl on the Third Floor, writer-director Travis Stevens is back with Jakob’s Wife, a darkly comic new horror film that puts a welcome feminist spin on some classic gothic tropes.

Genre legend Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator, From Beyond) stars as Anne, a woman in a small town stifling under the controlling hand of her minister husband Jakob, played by genre filmmaking icon Larry Fessenden (Depraved, Windigo). After meeting up with an ex-boyfriend, Anne has an encounter with a mysterious creature that sends her on a bloody journey of self-discovery and actualization, shaking up her relationship with Jakob and her existence to the very core.

If that sounds a little cagey, it’s in an effort to keep some sense of mystery surrounding Anne’s transformation until general audiences have a chance to see the film this April. Even if we were engaging in full spoilers here, it wouldn’t change the film’s impact — Jakob’s Wife is a wildly entertaining ride that subverts some of the most-established horror tropes, offering Anne a meaningful character arc without skimping on the laughs or on the copious amounts of gore.

Barbara Crampton simply lights up the screen as Anne, a repressed woman who begins to come out from under her husband’s thumb in the most unexpected ways. Larry Fessenden is equally great as the old-fashioned and slobby Jakob — his character is so frustrating that you’ll be rooting for him to gets what’s coming to him from the get-go.

Travis Stevens infuses Jakob’s Wife with the look and feel of campy ’80s horror-comedies like The Lost Boys, without ever losing sight of the repressive marriage at the heart of the story. It’s a unique spin on one of horror’s oldest tales, shot through with some biting social criticism about the insidious darkness lurking beneath the most seemingly banal of relationships.

Featuring a career-best performance from Barbara Crampton at its core, Jakob’s Wife is a gory and crowd-pleasing horror-comedy that feels perfectly-suited for these times.

Jakob’s Wife will be released in select theatres and on video-on-demand on April 16.