10 Most Terrifying Horror Movie Dream Sequences
4. Jacob's Ladder - World's Worst Doctor's Office
Praised as one of the truest examples of psychological horror, Jacob’s Ladder offers a million different examples of deep and poignant commentary.
Tim Robbins stars as a Vietnam war veteran (Jacob Singer) haunted by his past - both in and out of the war. There are a few examples of nightmarish visions from our protagonist, but the most unsettling of them may be a scene that falls midway through the film.
Jacob suffers a nightmare in which he is tied down and operated on by partially faceless doctors. The hospital setting is filthy and blood-soaked, the floor coated in a layer of unidentified goop that surely can’t be anything innocent. As with other points in the film, he sees demonic, mutilated fellow patients - some dead or dying.
The best element of this setup, however, is that even when he awakes (and is unsurprisingly very glad to do so), we find out that he never really ever became conscious again. The end of the film reveals that Jacob’s post-war experience has been something of a fever-dream, with none of the disturbing events occurring in actuality but existing only in his own head.
It’s a harsh commentary on war and its victims that transcends the years, even unfortunately getting its own 2019 remake.