Robbins plays a Vietnam War veteran who recently lost his preschool son, and experiences hallucinations of demons living among people in New York City (well, you don't need to be a war veteran to notice that). Similar to a David Lynch film, differentiating dream from reality throughout the movie is the main mystery, and some very vivid hallucination sequences (including a terrifying hospital scene), and an ending that gives multiple meanings to "Ladder" in the title, make this a very memorable one. Let's just say it must have been a great source of inspiration for a famous 1999 movie.
Mo says:
I saw this in the 90s on VHS at a friends house. I loved it but have never seen it since. It was advertised at the time as a horror film which of course it is!
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how this movie influenced so many others in the horror genre; "The American Horror Story", "The Sixth Sense", "Silent Hill", "The Jacket", even "Wallace & Grommit - The Case of the Were Rabbit" (!), to name a few.
ReplyDeleteI still haven't seen The Sixth Sense but will remedy that as soon as I can. Silent Hill was lambasted by many but I found it to be an enjoyable enough romp into nightmares!
ReplyDeleteOf all the movies you haven't seen, The Sixth Sense is definitely a must. Bruce Willis offers the sole great performance of his career, and the ending is by far the greatest surprise ending I could imagine. Which means after this, don't tell anybody you haven't seen the movie; they'll spoil the incredible ending.
ReplyDeleteAnd I guiltily admit I haven't seen Silent Hill yet. My source for the comment I made above was Wikipedia.
The ending to The Sixth Sense was leaked to me a long time ago but that didn't spoil my enjoyment at all. Haley Joel Osment was the star of the show. What an incredible find. I hope he can take his career on to the next level and become an adult star.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry about missing Silent Hill, it's no classic!
What I love about "Sixth Sense", is that both some scenes are terrifying, and some are sincere tear-jerkers. And then we have that incredible ending.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the "Silent Hill" advice - there are so many classics still in priority to see!