Popular reviews

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  Review by Dyrnott ★★★ 2

  Teetered between good and bad! The Gore is pretty good. Barbara Crampton is as beautiful as ever! She is the best part of the movie! It does better with the tongue and cheek moments the horror. You can check it out on Shudder.

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  Review by Joe Lynch ★★★½ 5

  This movie is fucking delicious.
  I will fully admit I am friends/collaborators with some of the cast & crew of this film but that doesn’t mean I can’t process my love for it. Stevens and gang deliver everything I love about the genre, from chills to laughs to splatter to character pathos to some serious scares.
  Just when you thought a sub genre had exhausted all its avenues, here comes Ann and Jacob. 
  Crampton (her best role since FROM BEYOND) and Fessenden are the Hepburn & Tracy Horror needs.
  The score by Tara Busch is perfect, way more nuanced and layered than your usual synth score. 
  The final shot RIPS. 
  The Cramptonaissance hits full steam. 
  See ASAP.

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  Review by 𝚮𝖆𝖗𝖑𝖊𝖖𝖚𝖎𝖓𝖆𝖉𝖊 🎃🕯️👻 ★★½ 22

  It's a predictable, generic, low budget vampire flick. The whole time I kept thinking how much more interested I'd be if the film was about Barbara Crampton's skin-care routine - she is 62 years old and looks absolutely luminous!

  Bonnie Aarons is playing yet another nightmarish creature in this, always great to see this legend.

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  Review by Dave Taylor ★★★½ 4

  I’m going on record saying that Barbara Crampton is the sexiest 60 something in the world!

  Lots of fun to be had here…the tone (and the blood) harkened back to 
  80’s classics like The Lost Boys.

  I also appreciated the deeper themes here about female subservience, though they hit the nail a little too square on the head by the end.

  And the cherry on top? A female vampire that looks like a perfect blend between Barlow from Salem’s Lot and Anthony Fauci. 😂

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  Review by nick ★★★★

  Jakob’s Wife is such an underrated low-budget horror gem. It's the whole package with effective scares, entertainment values and decent acting. It simply has all the potential to become a future cult classic.

  Combining elements of vampirism and feminism, the wittily titled Jakob’s Wife chronicles a priest's wife's chilling journey of self-exploration after a vampire attack. Despite its visibly limited budget, Jakob’s Wife sports some surprisingly decent practical effects and makeup. Barbara Crampton, the central figure of this offbeat coming-of-age tale, was versatile and experienced enough to pull off the mannerism and intensity of a middle-aged woman suppressed by an authoritative husband regaining her own autonomy through vampirism. Larry Fessenden, director of the classic Wendigo, was also highly captivating as…

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  Review by Griffin ★★★

  Wasn’t really fucking with this until about halfway through and then I was all the way inside and didn’t want to leave

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  Review by Helen ★★★½ 2

  A gooey fun time that kind of feels like elevated camp. 

  However, camp or not - the lighting is really something special here with bold chiaroscuro - the best example being when Anne was rearranging the living room. Even some of the camera shots they went for felt fresh and interesting. 

  It definitely wasn’t perfect, but I enjoyed it a lot and would absolutely recommend it for fans of the genre (or just fans of Barbara Crampton in general because she’s amazing).

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  Review by RepoJack ★★★½ 5

  "I fucking hate old white dudes."

  I would too if that old white dude was a prude asshole minister (played by horror staple Larry Fessenden, going completely against type).

  But Barbara Crampton is the stand-out star of this under-the-radar fun vampire flick about a brow-beaten preacher's wife who gets "bit" and comes into her own quickly.

  Crampton burst onto the scene in the classic Re-animator (1985) by Stuart Gordon and was a staple in most of Gordon's work through the 80's/90's. Apparently, at some point, she took a break from acting until she got a call to appear in Adam Wingard's You're Next.

  There is an awesome scene where she re-arranges the furniture with basically one hand (other hand holding…

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  Review by Allison M. 🌱 ★★★

  “It isn't me.”

  Vegan alert:
  -Amelia accidentally steps on mice on the way home at night
  -Priest lets a huge box smash over a huge mouse
  -Eating steak (noisily)
  -Bacon sizzling
  -Meat department
  -A character notes that he prefers meat to spinach

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  Review by Sofa Sinema ★★½ 4

  Jakob's wife's seemingly minor indiscretion has some bloody bad consequences. In its most engaging scenes, this latest Shudder exclusive evokes the comic splatter tone of eighties horror hits like Fright Night and Demons. The practical effects work here is commendably above average and should please fans of the craft.

  More fan service arrives in the comely form of Barbara Crampton. She really vamps it up as Anne, the sexually re-awakened wife of a town minister. Crampton is 62 and damn sexy. While she gets a solid assist from the costuming and lighting departments, I have to applaud her for flaunting it at that age. Larry Fessenden has some great chemistry with her, too.

  Sadly, it's not nearly as atmospheric or…

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  Review by Justin LaLiberty ★★★

  starts off as a somber domestic horror film and then quickly turns into something much gorier and tongue in cheek with vampires saying things like “I’m going to tongue fuck a hole in your neck until you puke blood” and Barbara Crampton ripping off heads - the practical effects are great and this has fun with vampire lore but it’s also a solid twenty minutes too long

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  Review by julianblair ★★★

  Here is a vivid independent film that presents an interesting twist on vampires as well as an allusion to the Biblical story of Jacob and Leah.

  Director Travis Stevens brings out the best in Barbara Crampton and Larry Fessenden, two old pros who shine in rare lead roles. Crampton is really good as a wife who begins to question the staleness of her life as a pastor's wife. She also feels unloved and subjected to her husband who is complacent in his role as "the head of his wife" and spiritual leader of the church. Yes, it seems there's a grim prognosis for their marriage however.....there may be restorative therapy on the way in the form of a master vampire.…