Mark Reviews Movies: JAKOB'S WIFE

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 15, 2021

There's little that's new in Jakob's Wife, which tells both the story of a long-suffering wife and a vampire threat in a small town, but there's definitely something clever in the combination of these two familiar narrative threads. We watch a woman, the wife of an overbearing preacher, transform into a blood-sucking creature of the night, and as a result, we also watch as she starts to assert some control over the course of her own life. It's thanks to a manipulative, controlling force that might claim her soul, but how different, really, is that from her marriage?

Co-writer/director Travis Stevens' approach to this material is intriguing. He plays the vampire stuff for shock (plenty of punctured or ripped throats erupting geysers of blood) and dark humor, but the eponymous character's plight and the course of this marriage are played relatively straight.

"Relative" is the key term here, because this story is still about a woman who becomes a vampire and a husband who becomes determined to rid his small town of the supernatural threat befalling it. It's inherently silly, but in between all of the gore and the fights with the undead, we mostly believe and understand these two characters, their relationship, and how the wife's newfound sense of self changes her, her husband, and the marriage.

It's a tricky proposition, but it's also one that Stevens pulls off with admirable effect and for an admirable amount of time. It's just a shame that the screenplay, co-written with the director by Kathy Charles and Mark Steensland, eventually succumbs to the jokey, over-the-top, and routine vampire side of things.

Anne (Barbara Crampton) has been married to Jakob (Larry Fessenden) for 30 years. He's the minister at a local church, and she is his silently dutiful wife, spending her days tending to his needs—cooking and cleaning—with only a few little routines for herself—exercising and gardening.

Anne has things to say, as an early conversation with a parishioner (played by Nyisha Bell) who's worried about her alcoholic mother shows, but Jakob doesn't give her space to talk before he takes over a conversation. That's true even when the local Sheriff (played by Jay DeVon Johnson) arrives at the church, asking questions about the young woman from Jakob's congregation, who was worried about her mother and now has gone missing.

There's something sinister afoot—a shadowy figure in a cloak who attacks the parishioner outside her home. Anne eventually comes into contact with it while spending time with Tom (Robert Rustler), an old boyfriend of hers, who has come into town to help transform an abandoned mill into a store. They catch up, flirt a bit, and kiss while inspecting the mill. Soon enough, they discover a pair of mysterious crates, filled with earth and, in one, a lot of rats. The rats make a slow, disgusting meal of Tom. The shadow, a vampire called "the Master" (Bonnie Aarons), comes for Anne.

The result is initially familiar on two fronts. Anne starts showing signs of vampirism—hungering for blood (A trip to the grocery store has her leaving with bags of blood from the butcher), showing signs of preternatural strength (While dancing around the living room, Anne re-arranges the furniture to her liking with one hand), having problems with sunlight (A teeth-whitening procedure at the dentist has fiery results). She also becomes more independent, confident, and apathetic toward her husband, who suspects an affair but, after trying to confront Tom at the mill, discovers something far more terrible.

Smartly, the movie doesn't turn Jakob into a villain, an antagonist, or an unsympathetic figure. He's just a man so caught up in his ways and beliefs that he has lost touch with his marriage and, more importantly, lost an understanding of and appreciation for his wife. The preacher rises to the fight with the vampires being unleashed on the town ("This is what I was trained for," he says), but as Anne's cravings start to get the better of her, the husband also rises to the task of supporting her.

There's a solid dynamic between these characters. Anne wants more from life and easily could run from the one in which she's trapped—either physically or by embracing the ways of a vampire. Jakob is too comfortable in his way of life and easily could treat his wife as he would any other force of evil. Deep down, they love each other, though, and beneath the movie's playful treatment of a battle between good and evil, there's an underlying, sincere sense of these two characters navigating the compromises of being two very different people in a marriage each of them wants to work.

They team up to contain the vampires, find a way to sate Anne's thirst for blood, and try to track down the Master. It re-ignites the spark of their marriage, but the movie's own spark ebbs as a result.

This mostly works as an off-kilter study of a marriage, and the central performances from Crampton and Fessenden do find emotional truth beneath the gimmickry of the plot, the characters, and this relationship. The gimmickry of Jakob's Wife does eventually and inevitably overtake everything else in this story, leaving us with plenty of fights and explosions of blood, but leaving behind the characters and the relationship that elevate the material.

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