The marriage
between mousy housewife Anne Fedder and her minister husband, Jakob, has grown
very cold. She goes through the motions of the dutiful wife, such as making him
breakfast every morning and has his dinner waiting for him when he comes home.
In return, he cuts her off in conversations with others and waves away her
opinions. This all changes, however, when Anne is bitten by a vampire (!).
Anne is played by lovely scream queen
legend Barbara Crampton, who starred in two of the late Stuart Gordon's best
films—Re-Animator (1985) and From Beyond (1986).
As of late, she has been seen in You're Next (2011), We Are Still
Here (2015), and Replace (2017). On this film, Jakob's Wife,
Crampton serves as a producer, as this was a passion project for her and took
her several years to get it made.
Playing
Pastor Jakob Fedder is Larry Fessenden, and he and Crampton are fantastic
together. I totally believed them as a couple, particularly as an older couple
possibly regaining that spark in their relationship due to a supernatural
occurrence.
Director
Travis Stevens and his co-writers, Kathy Charles and Mark Steensland, infuse Jakob's
Wife with a healthy sense of humor, but also keep it refreshingly adult at
times. There is a sex scene in the movie that is actually funny because it
happens at the most inopportune moment, but unlike many movie sex scenes that
are shoehorned into a movie because studio heads think the film will score
better with audiences, the scene here has meaning.
For every
familiar horror movie trope presented here, the story and characters take some
unexpected detours. This picture really is a pleasant surprise. Jakob's Wife
is a refreshing and offbeat take on the vampire film genre and is available to
rent on various streaming sites.
