I enjoyed Jessabelle. If you are partial to a sweaty, swampy, bayou ghost story then it's likely that you will enjoy yourself with the movie as well.
The story benefits from unraveling slowly and leaving some mystery about what's really happening until the very end. After a terrible accident leaves her reliant on a wheelchair, a woman is forced to move back to her family home in the Louisiana swamp with her estranged father. She finds that there are more than just emotional ghosts waiting for her in that lonely house. As far as modern horror goes, this isn't an overly violent or gory film. There are a few jump scares sprinkled throughout, but most of the time Jessabelle relies on building discomfort and unease through glimpses of figures that shouldn't be there, ominous sounds, and unnatural events among the oppressive bayou gloom. That makes it more unnerving when moments of extreme violence do come.
The end of the movie was a highlight for me, especially since many horror movies tend to fall apart in the last act. The closing events actually make sense within the context of the story and bring closure. The only real problem I had with the movie was that the resolution was fairly similar to another movie in the genre. That didn't ruin Jessabelle by any means, but the ending was so familiar that I won't mention the name of the other movie that I'm thinking of because anyone who has seen it will instantly have a fairly accurate idea of how Jessabelle concludes.
I recommend Jessabelle to anyone with an affinity for this type of horror - where atmosphere, mystery, and story take the lead over lots of action and mayhem.
The story benefits from unraveling slowly and leaving some mystery about what's really happening until the very end. After a terrible accident leaves her reliant on a wheelchair, a woman is forced to move back to her family home in the Louisiana swamp with her estranged father. She finds that there are more than just emotional ghosts waiting for her in that lonely house. As far as modern horror goes, this isn't an overly violent or gory film. There are a few jump scares sprinkled throughout, but most of the time Jessabelle relies on building discomfort and unease through glimpses of figures that shouldn't be there, ominous sounds, and unnatural events among the oppressive bayou gloom. That makes it more unnerving when moments of extreme violence do come.
The end of the movie was a highlight for me, especially since many horror movies tend to fall apart in the last act. The closing events actually make sense within the context of the story and bring closure. The only real problem I had with the movie was that the resolution was fairly similar to another movie in the genre. That didn't ruin Jessabelle by any means, but the ending was so familiar that I won't mention the name of the other movie that I'm thinking of because anyone who has seen it will instantly have a fairly accurate idea of how Jessabelle concludes.
I recommend Jessabelle to anyone with an affinity for this type of horror - where atmosphere, mystery, and story take the lead over lots of action and mayhem.