From the director of Three Wishes for Cinderella, Václav Vorlícek’s Who Wants to Kill Jessie? is a delightfully demented, absurdist 1966 comic book fantasy that is unlike anything else in the Czech New Wave – and presages the DC and Marvel comic book franchises by several decades.A scientist creates a serum designed to calm the dreams of restless cows, but tests it out on her husband who has been dreaming about the adventures of comic book heroine Jessie.Disaster ensues when the drug causes the characters from her husband’s dreams to manifest in the real world…Co-written by Milos Macourek (Happy End), Who Wants to Kill Jessie? is a deliriously off-the-wall gem.Exploding with ingenuity and wild ideas, the film audaciously subverts the fledgling superhero genre whilst offering a subtle but healthy dose of satire aimed at communist oppressors.
