Directed by Travis Stevens and produced by Barbara Crampton, Jakob’s Wife is a new vampire film with a feminist twist. After 30 long years of marriage in a small town, Jakob (Larry Fessenden) and Anne (Crampton) have grown apart. But an unexpected run-in with “The Master” empowers Anne. Her otherworldly transition gives her a new thirst for life — and a dangerous thirst for blood. While Anne likes the new woman she’s become, her husband isn’t quite so happy.
From Reanimator and Chopping Mall to You’re Next and We Are Still Here, Barbara Crampton has cemented her legacy in horror. She continues the tradition with her self-proclaimed “passion project” Jakob’s Wife. CBR had the opportunity to speak to Crampton regarding the feminist vampire flick, her favorite blood-soaked practical effect and working with Larry Fessenden as her onscreen husband.
CBR: I know Jakob’s Wife is your passion project. What was it that appealed to you about this story?
Barbara Crampton: It was a couple of things. I guess the first thing is that it sort of mirrored what was going on in my own life in a way. I had reached a point in my mid-thirties where I wasn’t really getting a lot of offers or jobs or even auditions. So, I kind of left the business for a number of years. I got married, had some kids and had a really awesome life as a mother. But I felt like I wasn’t working in the business, or maybe the business didn’t want me anymore. I don’t know, but when I came back a number of years after that with You’re Next, something happened in my career. People were calling me again, and I was getting jobs. People were interested in what I was doing and if I was doing anything.
So, I renewed my commitment to the business, and I really actively tried to get out there and work again and let people know that I wanted to act and I wanted to be a part of this awesome horror community. I felt like that’s what happens to Anne. Her marriage is kind of unsatisfying. I wouldn’t say that my own marriage or my own life was unsatisfying; it was really great. But there was definitely something that felt unfinished, and I felt like I wanted more.
So, when Anne gets bitten by the vampire, she regains the courage and the thirst to live bigger and bolder. That’s kind of what I was going through. You’re Next gave me the courage to feel like, “Oh, I could come back to the business, and I can work again.” And Anne has a new thirst and longing for life that she never knew she had. I really felt like those yearnings collided in Barbara and the story of Anne.
The other part of it was that I always wanted to play a classic character, and I never had the opportunity to play that. So, I guess who was going to give me that opportunity if it wasn’t going to be me [laughs]. I got to play a vampire, and I can scratch that off my bucket list and say, “Wow, I’ve tackled a big, iconic character.” And that was really satisfying for me too, to say that I’ve done that.
We get to see a very dynamic Barbara Crampton in this film. As Anne, you explore everything from anger and sadness to comedy and sexuality. Was there an aspect of Anne you enjoyed playing the most?
Crampton: Probably the dry comedy — the black comedy. I really enjoyed that. I’d like to do more comedy. I feel like at home with my family, I’m kind of funny, but I feel like people don’t get to see that in many of the roles that I’m offered. Most of the roles that I’m offered are a little more straight. I really enjoy humorous tones and fun. I got to play a little bit of that in Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich, but people don’t often consider me funny, so they don’t hire me for jobs like that. So, I’d say that was really one of the more satisfying aspects of the character.
Among early reviewers, people really love your dancing scene, which sort of marks Anne’s moment of rediscovering her lust for life. Do you want to talk a little bit about what that looked like behind the scenes?
Crampton: Yeah, Travis put that scene in there. He was one of the co-writers on the script. He wanted my character to really feel empowered and to also have fun because the first part of the film is deliberately very bland and banal and dry and sort of gray. Then when Anne gets bitten, she — as you said — gains this lust for life and feels encouraged that she could have fun again and have something before her and not feel like her life is over.
So, Travis wanted to do some really fun scene, and he said, “How about if you’re just dancing around the room with a goblet of blood like it would be a big glass of wine and you’re just feeling good about yourself?” [Laughs] I thought that was awesome, and we were able to use that song that’s in the movie during filming. So we could choreograph the moments in the song when it says, “Like you pick up a chair or something,” the energy and the movements of dancing around the room and picking up the furniture, we were able to really just work on it and dial it in.
The initial sequence was almost two minutes long, and we had to cut it down because we were having too much fun with it [laughs]. So we made five different cuts of that particular scene before we decided on the one we wanted in the film. But there is an extended version of that.
I thought you had great chemistry with Larry Fessenden. I know you’ve worked with him a couple of times, but what was it like working with him in a more intimate role as onscreen husband and wife?
Crampton: Well, there is no more giving, generous, open, interested partner that I could have wished for than Larry Fessenden to play Jakob. He is a man who has been in the business longer than I have, longer than 35 years. He’s been a producer, a director, writer, actor. He knows all facets of the business. And there is definitely a comfort level with him and I because we have worked together before on a couple of films, and also I did a few episodes of his Tales From Beyond the Pale radio drama that he produces with Glenn McQuaid. I’ve known Larry now for ten years; we’ve been friends.
In addition to what he brings as an actor because he has so much experience in the horror genre as a whole, he’s just a dear friend. Both of our characters are long-married people. And Larry and I — in our own lives — are long-married people with children.
As far as making a movie goes, we really understand how to get that done. And as far as people who are married and in long relationships with the big ups and downs and gives and takes of that, he really understands that too. As much as this movie is about feminism and a woman’s awakening to herself, it’s also about a marriage. It’s also about two people. And both people change in the film. They have to. To hopefully stay together because we don’t really know if they’re going to stay together at the end of the film, but we hope they will. To create that in a truthful manner, I think that Larry helped me and brought so much to his own individual character by everything that he is as a person and as a horror master himself.
Jakob’s Wife has a lot of themes going on, from gender roles to victim-blaming. What is the big message you hope audiences take away after watching the film?
Crampton: I’d really like them to not give up on their partner, to really be able to listen and move forward in bold and dynamic ways but not feel like they need to leave their partner behind to do so.
One of the things I loved about the film was how the serious themes were offset by these very charming practical effects that we horror fans love to see. Was there one in particular that you were pleased with how it came out after your saw the film?
Crampton: [Laughs] Yes! It was when I bite the neighbor’s neck, and I rip his head off. I wasn’t quite prepared for the amount of blood and how the head was really going to be ripped off. I didn’t know we were doing that much blood, and it sort of just happened while I was filming it, and it surprised me because I wasn’t expecting it. So, I had to go with it because we could only do that scene once [laughs]. The clean-up was about two hours after we did that scene.
So, the shock that you see on my face is real because I was shocked at what I had just done and the amount of blood, but I was also delighted that I finally got my first big meal, and it was delicious [laughs].
That’s actually my favorite practical effect moment. I would recommend this movie based on that scene alone.
Crampton: Yeah, when I finally saw it, I couldn’t believe it. I mean, it looked like about how much blood I knew was there and thought was there but seeing it onscreen — holy crap, it was so much!
I talked to Travis about this a little bit, but people already love these characters and would love to their stories fleshed out. Would you be on board for a Jakob’s Wife mini-series in the future?
Crampton: Yeah, we are talking about it. We will see what the reception is and if people want to see more of Jakob and Anne. I think we could make it happen, I do. But people have to go watch the movie to keep our numbers up [laughs]. They have to write positively about it and tweet about it and talk about it, and then we will see what happens after the final shot of the movie if we’ll go on and how we will go on.
Considering Jakob and Anne’s problems don’t entirely resolve at the end of the film if we checked in on them in a couple of years, what do you think their relationship will look like?
Crampton: To be honest with you, I think the questions of how do you navigate a relationship and communicate with one another in an effective manner so that everybody feels like they’re heard — these are questions that are eternal as vampirism. So, I don’t imagine that the struggles that they have are going to look that much different. They might find themselves in different situations with different decisions to make, but I think it’s an ongoing issue of how we are in relationships with one another and what that means and what we give up and what we give up and what we gain by being with one another. So, I think this question is never going to get resolved [laughs]. I think the questions keep coming up, and we have to just enter into them on a daily basis, moment to moment, trying to make the most loving decisions that we can. But these issues don’t go away.
Thank you, Barbara, for talking to us. I’m also looking forward to your Creepshow episode that is going to be coming out soon.
Crampton: Oh, yes! And let me tell you, I’ll just give you a little side knowledge. My character is really mean. The meanest character that I’ve ever played in my life. It’s so different from Anne in Jakob’s Wife. I can’t believe they asked me to play a mean character like this. I’m horrible. It’s like — do you remember the Karen woman who was in Central Park yelling at the bird watcher? She had the dog, and she was practically strangling the dog. It’s kind of like a character like that. She’s just so awful [laughs].
Directed by Travis Stevens and starring Barbara Crampton and Larry Fessenden, Jakob’s Wife is available in select theaters, VOD and digital April 16, 2021.
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