Fear
Freddy Krueger for Dummies.
Cast of Characters:
Rom – Joseph Sikora
Benny – Andrew Bachelor
Bianca – Annie Ilonzeh
Serena – Ruby Modine
Michael – Iddo Goldberg
Russ – Terrence Jenkins
Meg – Jessica Allain
Lou – Tip “T.I.” Harris
Director – Deon Taylor
Writer – Deon Taylor & John Ferry
Producer – Roxanne Avent, Omar Joseph, Heather Kritzer & Deon Taylor
Distributor – Hidden Empire Releasing
Rated R for bloody violence and language.
The Rundown: Needing a break from the burdens of a global, unnamed pandemic they’re in the middle of, best-selling author Rom (Joseph Sikora) and his girlfriend Bianca (Annie Ilonzeh) venture out to the Tahoe Mountains for a weekend getaway with some friends at the historic Strawberry Lodge.
Well, that place just sounds lovely. The demonic presence lurking down in the basement spruces things up a bit with an extra pleasant touch too.
Things start out A-okay for the group, but after learning of the lodge’s terrifying history, they soon find their “best weekend of their lives” getting rained on by a malevolent entity bent on using their deepest, darkest fears to destroy them.
Good Lord, if spending time at this podunk, second-rate Overlook Hotel in the woods is the best it’s ever gonna get for you, then your life sucks.
Initial Thoughts: From Songbird, Safer at Home and Host to the recent Kevin Williamson-penned Sick, pandemic-themed horror has been all the rage since COVID entered the picture in 2020. Now, three years later, we have Fear. No, this isn’t a remake of the 1996 psychological thriller starring Mark Wahlberg and Reese Witherspoon. This would be the next film to tap into our global virus-based fears, combining pandemic paranoia with a good ole fashioned haunted hotel story.
Filmed over the course of just 17 days in August 2020, before getting its ass kicked right through the postponement ringer, Fear is brought to us by Deon Taylor, the auteur behind such cinematic dung like Chain Letter, Traffik, The Intruder and the Meet the Blacks films. While that pristine resume leaves much to be desired here, if Happy Madison could win me over last year with Hustle, then I’d like to think anything’s possible.
Well, anything but this film.
God, I got so spoiled by January. With M3GAN, Plane, Skinamarink, and even Missing, which for a January flick was still okay, I somehow was fooled into thinking that Hollywood’s dumpster actually turned over a new leaf. Then Fear showed up, and January was like, “SURPRISE, MOTHER FUCKERS!! I’M BACK!!!!”
And, boy. is. it. ever.
The Good: Fear’s greatest gift to us viewers is its inspiration to all amateur filmmakers out there who get discouraged that they’ll never be able to get a theatrical release for one of their projects.
If this piece of trash can weasel its way into a semi-wide theatrical release, there’s hope for you too.
The Bad: As already mentioned, Fear was shot in 17 days. Now, that could go in one of two ways. There’s, “They shot this in 17 days?! That’s impressive!!” Then there’s “… (Sigh)… Well, that makes sense.”
Take a wild guess at which response this film earned.
You know you’re in store for a bad film when the not-so subtly creepy lodge caretaker, who looks like she came crawling straight out of Salem, takes a pic of the friends, telling them, “We like to memorialize all who stay with us… That way they never leave.”, and those imbeciles just smile back like, “Hey, that’s super neato!”
On paper, Fear isn’t inherently a bad idea. Exploring one’s fears is ripe for horror, but this film manages to drop the ball so hard in pretty much every area that I’m certain even the caterers messed up at some point during the production. We never get even a decent sense of who these characters are, and their relationships to each other are so ill-defined (not to mention the poor chemistry between the actors) that it makes it impossible for us to connect to anyone. On top of that, the big driving force of what should be the central conflict, their fears, is barely even treated with a surface level touch. We get just one slapdash exposition scene where all the friends briefly mention what their biggest fear is (e.g., drowning, blood, claustrophobia), but there’s never any exploration of those fears or what the source of them might be, so, by the time the film finally gets around to killing off this group of demon fodder, it plays out like empty bloodshed that feels entirely disconnected from the main narrative.
As for the narrative itself, I’m not really sure what Taylor and co-writer John Ferry are going for, and, to be honest, I don’t even think they’re sure either. Is this film about a haunted house or a commentary on the pandemic? The film can’t decide as it erratically bounces back and forth between both plot devices, and ultimately fails to flesh out either into anything substantive. The MacGuffin – I mean pandemic is basically there solely to keep the characters trapped in the house (which kinda makes you wonder what kind of weak sauce demon they’re up against if it needs a pandemic to keep them inside), and the haunting aspects don’t take shape until later on in the film when some vague, throwaway lore behind the lodge is revealed. Then, come the third-act, Fear takes a weird turn as it morphs into a half-assed faith-based movie, where Bianca simply recites a Bible verse to ward off the lodge’s evil spirits. That’d be all fine and dandy if, one, Taylor and Ferry took a more interesting route by picking a verse that had at least some connection to the lore they established, and, two, if they didn’t treat us like idiots by thinking we’d be so dumb as to fall for these characters not only figuring out the exact Bible passage, but figuring out that a piece of information they’re investigating refers to a Bible verse in the first place.
Those must be some amazing sleuthing skills for them to see just a group of numbers and all of sudden think, “Hey, that means Isaiah 41:9-10!!”
…
????????????????
The Ugly: Great horror relies heavily on a strong sense of mood and atmosphere, but, honestly, even bad horror films can sometimes score a couple style points. Fear, however, aims to be separate and unique from that pack, as it not only comes up missing in that department, it completely air-balls the attempt. This film is bland and drab on a level that is punishing. But wait! There’s more! If you think its ugly, murky palettes and depressing lack of style are bad, just wait ’til you see the awesome effects Taylor’s whipped up for us. Is it a demon? Is it a witch? I’m not being rhetorical there. No, I’m seriously asking, ’cause I couldn’t make heads or tails out of whatever the hell kind of CGI mess is being passed off as this… thing. At times, I couldn’t tell if I was seeing Taz’s tornado or a really pissed off tumbleweed, but okay then, sure. I mean, what strikes terror in the hearts and minds of moviegoers more than… gobbledygook personified?
Gross incompetence would’ve been an improvement.
And speaking of gross incompetence, this isn’t a spoiler, though I’m not sure why I’d care about spoiling this or not, as if I’m going to conclude this shit-show with a glowing recommendation. Anyway, the film ends and suddenly the words “DON’T FEAR” pop up on the screen in giant, all-caps letters. So, my first thought was that this was some kind of inspirational message capper, like “Hey, don’t fear, everyone!” Turns out I was quite wrong. Actually, Don’t Fear was the original title of this film before it was changed to simply Fear, and I’m guessing that not-so little slip-up must’ve slipped through the minds of everyone in the editing booth ’cause as Dr. Ian Malcolm would point out, “… Uh – yeah… uh-huh… well – uh – there it is.”
This is like that episode of Boy Meets World where Eric Matthews scores only a 190 on his practice SAT test when just signing your name gets you a minimum of 200, and that’s when he discovers that there are, in fact, “two Ts in Matthews”.
Seriously, you had one job, title card guy.
All of that above ranting said, should I really expect much from a film whose message, as stated through its leading man Rom, is basically ignore your fear and run from it? Not only is that a shitty, counterproductive message, but even just from a narrative standpoint, wouldn’t it make things more compelling for your characters to have them overcome their fears by confronting the source? All ignoring them solves is just putting them at bay for a little while before they inevitably manifest again.
And nothing frightens me more than those fears coming back and manifesting themselves in the form of Fear 2.
Consensus: Void of any tension, terror, atmosphere, style, and even the slightest coherent thought, the only thing to fear in Fear is the mortifying realization that the money you spent to watch this carelessly slopped together mess has vanished forever.
Silver Screen Fanatic’s Verdict: I give Fear a F (0 stars).
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