Red-headed Jessabelle (Sarah Snook) gets in a car accident with her boyfriend. He is killed and her legs are injured, so she has to be in a wheelchair. Two months later she goes to live with her father (David Andrews of MANN & MACHINE) in Louisiana, who she hasn't seen since she was a child. He's very uncomfortable with her--and sets her up in her mother's old room, which his on the first floor of the house. She snoops around and finds a VHS tape from 1988, when her mother (Joelle Carter of JUSTIFIED) was seven months pregnant with her. In the video her mother tells her how much she loves her--and then does a Tarot card reading. It's not a good reading and the mother is disturbed by it. In another video, she does another reading--and it's even worse for Jessabelle. She begins having vivid nightmares and hallucinations which involve a wild-looking young woman. Her father wants her to get rid of the VHS because he tells her that her mother was crazy from a brain tumor--but she insists on watching them. Finally, her father takes them to a shed to burn them and ends up setting himself on fire. It's at his funeral that Jessabelle runs into an old high school friend--and they begin to discover some things about her father and mother that has very direct consequences for her.
JESSABELLE is unpredictable, has some genuine scares, and is very much along the lines of ANGEL HEART and SKELETON KEY. Recommended.