6. Jessabelle

Jessabelle Trailer

Director Kevin Greutert and writer Ben Garant’s 2014 creepfest Jessabelle is about a young woman named Jessie (aka Jessabelle), played by Sarah Snook, who loses her boyfriend and her unborn child in a car accident. Wheelchair-bound and having nowhere else to go, she moves in with the father she hasn’t seen since childhood. The reception is understandably distant, but when Jessie finds some old VHS tapes left to her by her late mother, the father grows increasingly angry and violent. He keeps trying to destroy the tapes, but Jessie keeps discovering new ones. The more she watches, the more frequent her nightmares become. Violent occurrences make her fear for her sanity and her life. One day, Jessie’s dad decides to set fire to what he believes are the last videotapes. His arm accidentally catches fire, and eventually sends the whole tool shed up in flames. Jessie, in her wheelchair can only watch through a window inside the main house. And this is just the start of Jessie’s quest to understand who her undead stalker is. Unexpectedly, voodoo comes into play, and with it the mysteries of its violence and living sacrifices. Why is there a tomb with Jessie’s name and date of birth across the lake?

The unraveling of the plot twists is well set up. The spirit that haunts Jessie is a voracious barbarian, inflicting acts of violence even on bystanders who try to assist Jessie in her mission. Instead of an exorcism, purification comes from water metaphors, insinuating baptism. Washing away sins. Though the hints are not overtly revealing, the final answers may feel a bit predictable. In any case, the mother-and-child phenomena appears yet again, as with many of the films on this list. Jessabelle also gives us a glimpse into what a father goes through when his family is threatened. The Conjuring’s family is terrorized by possibly multiple ghouls (it’s hard to verify if there is more than one), but in Jessabelle, only one is needed for the ultimate creep-out.