JACOB’S LADDER messed up my childhood. I snuck a VHS copy of the movie from a family friend and proceeded to watch the hellish hallucinations of Jacob Singer with a less than full understanding of the film’s plot and twist ending. All I know is those eyeless doctors f*cked up my nightmares for a good long time. Visiting the film later in life, I found Adrian Lyne‘s movie to be incredibly depressing, slowly paced, but beautifully filmed.
Well, time to shake all that up because JACOB’S LADDER is getting a remake. The Hollywood Reporter says MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN screenwriter Jeff Buhler will write the remake for producers Michael Gaeta and Alison Rosenzweig. Gaeta and Rosenzweig produced the 2011 take on FRIGHT NIGHT and are working on a remake of the Mickey Rourke/Robert De Niro cult classic ANGEL HEART.
While the Tim Robbins film told the story of a Vietnam veteran experiencing hallucinations that may or may not be real, the new film may deviate substantially from that story.
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.
I take homage here to mean they will use the same title and maybe allude to the original film but tell a very different story. JACOB’S LADDER is not the most recognizable film that could be remade so I am not sure why they are even bothering to do so, but I guess it is time for a new generation of kids to sneak Blu-rays of this movie and proceed to shit their pants.