Let's Scare Jessica to Death

Let's Scare Jessica to Death
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	John Hancock
Written by	John Hancock Lee Kalcheim
Produced by	Charles B. Moss Jr. William Badalato
Starring	Zohra Lampert Barton Heyman Kevin O'Connor Gretchen Corbett Mariclare Costello
Cinematography	Robert M. Baldwin
Edited by	Murray Solomon[1]
Music by	Orville Stoeber
Production company	The Jessica Company[1]
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	August 27, 1971 (1971-08-27)
Running time	89 minutes[1][2]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$250,000[3]
Box office	$47,651 (opening week)[4]

Let's Scare Jessica to Death is a 1971 American horror film co-written and directed by John Hancock in his directorial debut, and starring Zohra Lampert, Barton Heyman, Kevin O'Connor, Gretchen Corbett, and Mariclare Costello. The film depicts the nightmarish experiences of a psychologically fragile woman who comes to believe that another strange, mysterious young woman she has let into her home may actually be a vampire.

Initially conceived by writer Lee Kalcheim as a satirical horror film about a group of hippies preyed upon by a monster in a lake, the screenplay was significantly reworked after director Hancock signed on to the project. Hancock took certain elements from Kalcheim's script, but opted to write a straightforward horror film set at a remote farmhouse. Inspired by Henry James' novella The Turn of the Screw and Robert Wise's film The Haunting (1963), Hancock wanted to center the screenplay on a protagonist whose credibility interpreting events could be questioned by the audience so they could use their imagination. Filming of Let's Scare Jessica to Death took place in various towns and villages in Connecticut, largely in Middlesex County.

Though completed without a distributor, the film was purchased by Paramount Pictures, who gave it a wide release in the United States in late August 1971. The film received middling reviews from critics at the time, with some remarking the atmosphere and performances are inconsistent in tone, while others criticized the sparse and ambiguous narrative. Though criticism of the film has been divided, it went on to attain a cult following,^[5] and some film scholars have drawn comparisons to Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's novel Carmilla (1871).

In 2006, the Chicago Film Critics Association pronounced Let's Scare Jessica to Death one of the scariest films ever made, and in 2012, it was ranked in the British Film Institute's Sight & Sound poll as the 849th greatest film of all time.^[6] The film was scarcely available in home media formats for several decades, available only on Betamax and VHS until 2006, when Paramount issued a DVD version. A Blu-ray was released by Scream Factory in January 2020.