Jacob's LadderMovies like Jacob's Ladder
- Key Features:
- Psychological horror, Vietnam War, Existential crisis, Hallucinations, Trauma, Paranoia, Loss of sanity, Nightmares, Mystery, Disturbing imagery, Mental breakdown, Conspiracy, Religious allegory, Unreliable narrator, Gothic horror, Violence-moderate, Cult classic
- Tone:
- serious, suspense-driven, gritty
- Target Audience:
- Horror fans, Psychological thriller enthusiasts, Fans of surreal cinema, Viewers interested in war trauma narratives
- Emotional Arc:
- Confusion → Dread → Despair
Jacob's Ladder

After returning home from the Vietnam War, veteran Jacob Singer struggles to maintain his sanity. Plagued by hallucinations and flashbacks, Singer rapidly falls apart as the world and people around him morph and twist into disturbing images. His girlfriend, Jezzie, and ex-wife, Sarah, try to help, but to little avail. Even Singer's chiropractor friend, Louis, fails to reach him as he descends into madness.
Jacob's Ladder
After losing his brother in combat, Jacob Singer returns home from Afghanistan -- only to be pulled into a mind-twisting state of paranoia. Singer soon realizes that his sibling is alive but life is not what it seems.

A Vietnam veteran that spends his days photographing pretty girls, and his nights strangling them, sets sights on the patients of a radio psychiatrist.

Cherry drifts from college dropout to army medic in Iraq—anchored only by his one true love, Emily. But after returning from the war with PTSD, his life spirals into drugs and crime as he struggles to find his place in the world.

Army psychiatrist Colonel Kane is posted to a secluded gothic castle housing a military asylum. With a reserved calm, he indulges the inmates' delusions, allowing them free rein to express their fantasies.

Soldier Robert Miller returns home from Afghanistan unable to fit back into society. Living on a violent council estate and finding work in undercover surveillance, he becomes obsessed with taking down a group of local gangsters who are intrinsically tied to a suspected terrorist cell. Taking the situation into his own hands, Robert embarks on a brutal quest for justice, with devastating consequences.

A reclusive telemarketer has only one semblance of a friend: His telecommuter boss. But the telemarketer's social circle seems to improve greatly when a whimsical co-worker enters his life. Only, as he begins to sketch his new friend's portrait, disturbing "voices" from the phone man's past threaten to lead him into a network of destruction.

A military veteran goes on a journey into the future, where he can foresee his death and is left with questions that could save his life and those he loves.

After witnessing a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient, Dr. Rose Cotter starts experiencing frightening occurrences that she can't explain.

West Point graduate lieutenant Jeff Knight meets cynicism when taking command of sergeant Michael McNamara's tour veterans platoon in a Vietnamese trench camp. Unlike his predecessor, who hid till the end of his tour, Jeff takes charge, experiences the manual doesn't allow coping with all realities and gets wounded. He returns, now fully respect by men and superiors. Besides the Vietcong, the platoon wrestles with the inscrutable villagers, which the G.I.'s officially protect, but also fear as some collaborate with them, other covertly with the Cong, either way subject to bloody reprisals.

After being diagnosed with dementia, an elderly war veteran is forced by his estranged family to hire a live-in nurse, only to find she harbors a sinister secret.

A troubled college freshman resurrects his imaginary friend to help him cope with a violent trauma.

A young soldier who was thought to be killed in Vietnam returns home and exhibits disturbing behavior, much to the confusion of his family.

A Vietnam veteran, Charles Rane, returns home after years in a POW camp and is treated as a hero. He has a hard time adjusting, and things go badly. A movie about the walking dead, before that meant just flesh-eating zombies.

Disturbing and mysterious things begin to happen to a bartender in New Orleans after he picks up a phone left behind at his bar.

Suffering from insomnia, disturbed loner Travis Bickle takes a job as a New York City cabbie, haunting the streets nightly, growing increasingly detached from reality as he dreams of cleaning up the filthy city.

An ex-soldier with PTSD is hired to protect the wife and child of a wealthy Lebanese businessman while he's out of town.

A Vietnam vet takes forceful control of Central Park to remember those who served and died in the Vietnam War.

Admitted to Mt. Abaddon Hospital for a routine procedure, George Grieves discovers that his condition is much more serious and complicated than originally expected; and as his own fears begin to manifest around him, he learns that Mt. Abaddon is not a place where people come to get better... it is a place where people come to die.

An American WWI veteran undertakes a spiritual quest that takes him from Paris to Nepal to the Himalayas and back to his hometown. Upon his return, he discovers he is not the only one who has changed.

Troubled psychotherapist Peter Bowers is suffering from nightmares and eerie visions. When he uncovers a horrifying secret that all of his patients share, he is put on a course that takes him back to the small hometown he fled years ago. There he confronts his demons and unravels a mystery 20 years in the making.

Traumatized since childhood by her brother's accidental death, Danika Merrick hallucinates a bank robbery and quits her job. Despite support from her three children and loving husband, Danika continues to experience unnerving visions. She seeks help from therapist Evelyn Harris but pervasive reports of violent incidents involving children make Danika fear for her own family, and she grows increasingly paranoid, worrying she may be going insane.

A Young soldier returning from Iraq goes on a high mountain adventure in a desolate place in Europe to forget his past, he will lear truth in a mysterious local legend discovering that reality can be sicker than nightmares.

At the end of WWII, Jimmy Picard, a Native American Blackfoot who fought in France, suffers from unexplainable symptoms and is admitted to a military hospital. When doctors suspect schizophrenia, an eccentric psychoanalyst takes up the case and starts a conversation with the veteran.

Roy Tucker, a Vietnam war veteran with excellent shooting skills, is serving a long prison sentence when a mysterious visitor promises him that he will be released if he agrees to carry out a dangerous assignment.

A conflict develops between a troubled Vietnam veteran and the sister he lives with when she becomes involved romantically with the army buddy who reminds him of the tragic battle they both survived.

A group of people are trapped in an elevator high above Philadelphia, and one of them is the devil.

During the Vietnam War, a soldier finds himself the outsider of his own squad when they unnecessarily kidnap a female villager.

A group of working-class friends decide to enlist in the Army during the Vietnam War and finds it to be hellish chaos -- not the noble venture they imagined. Before they left, Steven married his pregnant girlfriend -- and Michael and Nick were in love with the same woman. But all three are different men upon their return.

The men of Bravo Company are facing a battle that's all uphill… up Hamburger Hill. Fourteen war-weary soldiers are battling for a mud-covered mound of earth so named because it chews up soldiers like chopped meat. They are fighting for their country, their fellow soldiers and their lives. War is hell, but this is worse. Hamburger Hill tells it the way it was, the way it really was. It's a raw, gritty and totally unrelenting dramatic depiction of one of the fiercest battles of America's bloodiest war. This happened. Hamburger Hill - war at its worst, men at their best.

Merit, a U.S. Army veteran suffering from PTSD, is repeatedly tortured by visions of her deceased friend and company buddy Zoe. After her Afghanistan service in 2016, she attends group therapy until Dale, her grandfather and former Lieutenant Colonel, is recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Merit steps up to his aide, and discovers more about herself and her family, while also gaining the courage to put her metaphorical demons to rest.

As the president of a trashy TV channel, Max Renn is desperate for new programming to attract viewers. When he happens upon "Videodrome," a TV show dedicated to gratuitous torture and punishment, Max sees a potential hit and broadcasts the show on his channel. However, after his girlfriend auditions for the show and never returns, Max investigates the truth behind Videodrome and discovers that the graphic violence may not be as fake as he thought.

Trevor, an insomniac lathe operator, experiences unusual occurrences at work and home. A strange man follows him everywhere, but no one else seems to notice him.

Two young men are seriously affected by the Vietnam War. One of them has always been obsessed with birds - but now believes he really is a bird, and has been sent to a mental hospital. Can his friend help him pull through?

In 1968 California, a Marine officer's wife falls in love with a former high school classmate who suffered a paralyzing combat injury in the war.

Brian comes under the addictive spell of a parasite with the ability to induce euphoric hallucinations in its hosts.

Michaela, an epileptic, enrolls in college to study education. She goes off her medication and soon begins hearing voices and seeing apparitions that tell her to avoid religious objects, although she is devoutly Roman Catholic. One priest scoffs at the idea that Michaela could be possessed by demons, but a younger pastor arranges an exorcism for the young woman.

A troubled actor begins to unravel while shooting a supernatural horror film, leading his estranged daughter to wonder if he's slipping back into his past addictions or if there's something more sinister at play.

An exorcist comes up against an evil from his past when he uses his skills to enter the mind of a nine year old boy.

Billy Pilgrim, a veteran of the Second World War, finds himself mysteriously detached from time, so that he is able to travel, without being able to help it, from the days of his childhood to those of his peculiar life on a distant planet called Tralfamadore, passing through his bitter experience as a prisoner of war in the German city of Dresden, over which looms the inevitable shadow of an unspeakable tragedy.

As a young and naive recruit in Vietnam, Chris Taylor faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.

A man on the verge of a promotion takes a mysterious hallucinogenic drug that begins to tear down his reality and expose his life for what it really is.

A socially awkward woman with a fondness for arts and crafts, horses, and supernatural crime shows finds her increasingly lucid dreams trickling into her waking life.

During the Iraq War, a Sergeant recently assigned to an army bomb squad is put at odds with his squad mates due to his maverick way of handling his work.

A lonely metermaid has a psychotic reaction to his medication and becomes convinced he's a superhero. A very select group of people in life are truly gifted. Special is a movie about everyone else.

When hundreds of videotapes showing torture, murder and dismemberment are found in an abandoned house, they reveal a serial killer's decade-long reign of terror and become the most disturbing collection of evidence homicide detectives have ever seen.

An ex-cop and his family are the target of an evil force that is using mirrors as a gateway into their home.

Radio talk show therapist Sonny Blake moves back to her childhood home on seemingly idyllic Rosewood Lane after her alcoholic father dies. But upon arrival in the old neighborhood, Sonny discovers her neighbors are terrified of the local paperboy. She thinks this is ridiculous, until she encounters the boy himself. It turns out that he is a cunning and dangerous sociopath, one who may have gruesomely killed her father - and others.

Set in postwar America, a man watches his seemingly perfect life fall apart as his daughter's new political affiliation threatens to destroy their family.

Mrs. Van Houten has shown signs of losing touch with reality, and her husband discusses possible treatment with Dr. Caligari, who says Mrs. Van Houten has a disease of the libido.

William Keane is barely able to cope. It has been six months since his six-year-old daughter was abducted from New York City’s Port Authority Bus Terminal while traveling with him. Repeatedly drawn to the site of the abduction, Keane wanders the bus station, compulsively replaying the events of that fateful day, as if hoping to change the outcome.

A laundry-folding machine has been possessed by a demon, causing it to develop homicidal tendencies.

Minnesota, 1990. Detective Bruce Kenner investigates the case of young Angela, who accuses her father, John Gray, of an unspeakable crime. When John unexpectedly and without recollection admits guilt, renowned psychologist Dr. Raines is brought in to help him relive his memories and what they discover unmasks a horrifying nationwide mystery.

A man becomes obsessed with facts and events that have been collectively misremembered by thousands of people. Believing the phenomena to be the symptom of something larger, his obsession eventually leads him to question reality itself.

A typical night for veterans at a VFW turns into an all-out battle for survival when a desperate teen runs into the bar with a bag of stolen drugs. When a gang of violent punks come looking for her, the vets use every weapon at their disposal to protect the girl and themselves from an unrelenting attack.

Set during the Vietnam war, Firebase follows American soldier Hines through an ever-deepening web of science fiction madness.

Three people from different walks of life find themselves trapped inside a stalled elevator. What at first seems like an inconvenience rapidly escalates into a nightmare.

A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the U.S.-Vietnam War has on his fellow recruits from their brutal boot camp training to the bloody street fighting in Hue.

Martin Durnley is a young man with an infantilizing mother, resentful stepfather and an institutionalized brother with Down's syndrome. To cope, he retreats into an alternate child personality he calls Georgie. After being caught during a theft attempt at a department store, he befriends a female customer who is sympathetic to him, but his friendship soon turns into obsession.

A woman's carefully constructed life is upended when an unwelcome shadow from her past returns, forcing her to confront the monster she's evaded for two decades.

A young woman with no strong religious beliefs, Frankie Paige begins having strange and violent experiences, showing signs of the wounds that Jesus received when crucified. When the Vatican gets word of Frankie's situation, a high-ranking cardinal requests that the Rev. Andrew Kiernan investigate her case. Soon Kiernan realizes that very sinister forces are at work, and tries to rescue Frankie from the entity that is plaguing her.

Tov Matheson is a war veteran with PTSD who perceives that the apocalypse is coming. After starting a relationship with a dubious Messiah, he leaves his normal life and begins the construction of a shelter underground, training himself, in an extreme way, at the cost of losing everything and making people believe he is insane. When he also believes it, something extraordinary happens.

A mentally disturbed man takes residence in a halfway house. His mind gradually slips back into the realm created by his illness, where he replays a key part of his childhood.

The story of a group of men, an Army Rifle company called C-for-Charlie, who change, suffer, and ultimately make essential discoveries about themselves during the fierce World War II battle of Guadalcanal. It follows their journey, from the surprise of an unopposed landing, through the bloody and exhausting battles that follow, to the ultimate departure of those who survived.

Rose, a desperate mother takes her adopted daughter, Sharon, to the town of Silent Hill in an attempt to cure her of her ailment. After a violent car crash, Sharon disappears and Rose begins a desperate search to get her back. She descends into the center of the twisted reality of a town's terrible secret. Pursued by grotesquely deformed creatures and townspeople stuck in permanent purgatory, Rose begins to uncover the truth behind the apocalyptic disaster that burned the town 30 years earlier.

Every culture has one – the horrible monster fueling young children's nightmares. But for Tim, the Boogeyman still lives in his memories as a creature that devoured his father 16 years ago. Is the Boogeyman real, or did Tim make it up to explain why his father abandoned his family?

After their airplane crashes behind enemy lines, four soldiers must survive and try to find a way back to their battalion. However, when they come across a local peasant girl the horrors of war quickly become apparent.

A mild-mannered college professor discovers a look-alike actor and delves into the other man's private affairs.

A young woman left her family for an unspecified reason. The husband determines to find out the truth and starts following his wife. At first, he suspects that a man is involved. But gradually, he finds out more and more strange behaviors and bizarre incidents that indicate something more than a possessed love affair.

A series of down-on-their-luck individuals enter the decrepit and spine-chilling Rialto theater, only to have their deepest and darkest fears brought to life on the silver screen by The Projectionist – a mysterious, ghostly figure who holds the nightmarish futures of all who attend his screenings.

Karen, a young psychiatric nurse, boards the last subway train of the night only to have it stop in the middle of the tunnel. Suddenly, her nightmare begins: a mysterious cult has decided that it's the end of the world and the only way to save the souls of the living is to kill them in cold blood. As those around her are brutally murdered, Karen and a handful of survivors must face the homicidal cult, supernatural forces, and their own fears of Armageddon in order to survive.

An insurance investigator visits a small town while looking into the strange disappearance of a popular horror novelist. He soon finds that the impact of the author’s books is far more than inspirational.

A young woman attempts to cure her phobia of the boogeyman by checking herself into a mental health facility, only to realize too late that she is now helplessly trapped with her own greatest fear.

A dangerously unstable man addresses the unseen followers of his video log about his obsession with an old army buddy.

At the height of the Vietnam war, Captain Benjamin Willard is sent on a dangerous mission that, officially, "does not exist, nor will it ever exist." His goal is to locate - and eliminate - a mysterious Green Beret Colonel named Walter Kurtz, who has been leading his personal army on illegal guerrilla missions into enemy territory.

The wife of a photojournalist sets out to discover why he came home from a recent assignment without his colleague.

An elderly gentleman goes for what he assumes will be an ordinary day at the amusement park, only to find himself in the midst of a hellish nightmare.

Forced to work extremely hard to keep things afloat, Paul begins hearing voices in his head questioning his past choices. Convinced that his wife has been unfaithful, he begins to see every male guest as a potential threat. What follows is Paul's downward spiral into the madness of deranged jealousy where he finally discovers that hell is not a state of mind – hell is himself.

A young American soldier, rendered in pseudocoma from an artillery shell from WWI, recalls his life leading up to that point.

A returning war veteran, stricken with PTSD, gets trapped with his teenage sister on Boston's Tobin Memorial Bridge when a heavily armed group of ex-military revolutionaries take everyone hostage.

Though no one can see him, Hollow Face lurks in the corners, desperately desiring love but only knowing how to spread fear and hate. He creeps into the life of John Farrow after Farrow’s beloved 13-year-old daughter Mia is assaulted in their home. The line between the real and the imaginary blurs as fissures start to open within the family unit. It seems that no security measure can keep Hollow Face out.

On the streets they call cash dead presidents. And that's just what a Vietnam veteran is after when he returns home from the war only to find himself drawn into a life of crime. With the aid of his fellow vets he plans the ultimate heist -- a daring robbery of an armored car filled with unmarked U.S. currency!

A family discovers that dark spirits have invaded their home after their son inexplicably falls into an endless sleep. When they reach out to a professional for help, they learn things are a lot more personal than they thought.

A beautiful, schizophrenic, woman is pushed over the edge by her husbands illicit affairs. When her hallucinations become reality, the Devil comes to take his due. Is Miriam insane or has the Devil come to collect on her promise?

Captain Mack leads an elite military unit on a search for a missing scientist, and comes face-to-face with an an ancient evil lying beneath the Middle Eastern desert. Evil that is not of this world. Evil that should never be unearthed.

The sadistic tale of a lonely, mentally handicapped boy who befriends his reflection in an antique mirror. This demonic creature orders him to go on a murderous rampage to kill the people he loves most.

A woman tries to exonerate her brother's murder conviction by proving that the crime was committed by a supernatural phenomenon.

Dr. Tremayne is an enigmatic psychiatrist running an asylum that houses four very special cases. Visited by his colleague Nicholas, Tremayne explains his amazing and controversial theories as to why each of the four patients went mad.

A doctor dealing with the aftermath of his son's death tries to help a troubled young man.

A veteran soldier returns from his completed tour of duty in Iraq, only to find his life turned upside down when he is arbitrarily ordered to return to field duty by the Army.

Two men wake up to find themselves shackled in a grimy, abandoned bathroom. As they struggle to comprehend their predicament, they discover a disturbing tape left behind by the sadistic mastermind known as Jigsaw. With a chilling voice and cryptic instructions, Jigsaw informs them that they must partake in a gruesome game in order to secure their freedom.

A group of Vietnam War veterans re-unite to rescue one of their own left behind and taken prisoner by the Vietnamese.

Under the watchful eye of his mentor, Captain Mike Kennedy, probationary firefighter Jack Morrison matures into a seasoned veteran at a Baltimore fire station. However, Jack has reached a crossroads as the sacrifices he's made have put him in harm's way innumerable times and significantly impacted his relationship with his wife and kids.

Roger Cobb, a divorced horror novelist coming to terms with the disappearance of his young son, inherits an old mansion home to malevolent supernatural residents.

A group of hobos begin melting into multicolored piles of goo after drinking sixty-year-old liquor. At the same time, the psychotic Vietnam War vet who rules the hobo camp snaps and begins killing at random. Two brothers set out to stop the liquor and the killer.

A minor train accident in rural Nebraska gradually unveils a mystery involving the town's reclusive bank clerk.

Theresa, a haunted young woman spiraling in the wake of profound loss, is torn between her fractured emotional state and the reality-altering effects of a potent cannabinoid drug.

A Gulf War veteran with PTSD heads to a small town to find his friend. When he arrives his friend and his family have vanished and the townsfolk afraid to answer questions about their disappearance. He soon discovers that the town is owned and controlled by one man, and he doesn't like people asking questions.

After a plane crash, a young therapist, Claire, is assigned by her mentor to counsel the flight's five survivors. When they share their recollections of the incident -- which some say include an explosion that the airline claims never happened -- Claire is intrigued by Eric, the most secretive of the passengers.

After denying a woman the extension she needs to keep her home, loan officer Christine Brown sees her once-promising life take a startling turn for the worse. Christine is convinced she's been cursed by a Gypsy, but her boyfriend is skeptical. Her only hope seems to lie in a psychic who claims he can help her lift the curse and keep her soul from being dragged straight to hell.
