In Fear (2014)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

hyped garbage

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

As a horror movie fanatic I have seen most out there, and usually I find myself sorely disappointed. Almost immediately I felt a creepy vibe with this movie, and it remained creepy and suspenseful throughout. This was the main plus. So many horror movies these days claim to be "horror" while in reality they are comedies with a "horror"-ish theme. This was not. However, despite the building suspense of the movie, no real climactic ending ensued. There were many things left unexplained, and I felt it could have gone much farther into the darkness than it did. This is why I did not give it more stars even though I did thoroughly enjoy it. It could have been better, true, but I think it was on the right track for horror, a thing I sorely miss these days.

This is a well-made film. Great directing and acting. The first 30 minutes are a great set up. But then...well, it just seems to run out of ideas. (SPOILERS) Who pulled her hair? Even if someone is switching the signs around, they really can't figure it out or give up before nightfall? Why does the GPS quit...and the cell phones? How are her clothes removed when they've been in the car the whole time? If you're going to introduce supernatural causes, then you need to be faithful to them and pay them off. Or explain them away with a natural explanation. The spooky stuff is great, but none of it is paid off. Turns out one (?) lone psycho is after them? It just falls apart the last 40 minutes.Again, great talent in front and behind the camera, but just no story to tell, just an idea.

My quick rating - 4,8/10. I am not sure what people on IMDb are raving about. It may have been simple and to the point, or if you want to read well into this much more then exists, then sure, it could be phenomenal. Truth is I watched a marginal horror movie that was entirely too boring for half of it. The acting was not very good to hold so much of the film being just the two people in the car. I would give my opinions of what actually could've happened but there is no way to do so without giving spoilers. Let me just say, I really don't think this movie is much more then face value but only the creators could say for sure. Maybe someone will comment on IMDb to me and tell me if my "theory" about this is correct. If not, this is just a drive around lost with some bad guy harassing you every step of the way. Might be worth viewing if you want to get in the conversation of "What ifs"

Having read a number of positive reviews, I watched "In Fear" expecting a competent, low-budget genre exercise with perhaps some new twists. There is definitely some skill and creativity involved in this film, but ultimately I think it disappoints because it abandons genre conventions to strain for a psychological depth which it doesn't really have. As many reviews note, it starts off strong but loses focus about halfway through the film.I just wanted to note a couple of points which I haven't seen discussed elsewhere. (Spoilers follow!) 1) Some of my favorite films deal with the problems that arise from ineffective communication (e.g. "Blood Simple"). "In Fear" touches on this theme, as Tom and Lucy bicker and talk past each other and fail to connect. But this never goes anywhere, and the dialogue is mostly just uninteresting. (Apparently most of it was improvised, which seems like a gimmick that should have been dropped in favor of a tighter script.) 2) The backstory/explanation for the film's events is left vague and largely unclear. I have no problem with films using ambiguity, mystery, and lack of resolution for effect or to suggest a deeper theme. This can work quite well in the horror genre (see the stories of Robert Aickman, or a film like "Kill List"). With "In Fear", though, we just have a very simple bad-guy-terrorizes-innocents-in-creepy-setting plot; and the vague hints and missing pieces come across as an unsuccessful attempt to suggest that there's more going on here than there really is.3) Having said that, however, there does seem to be a motive to Max's madness buried in the hints. In the title credits we see an auto accident, and later on Max tells of a boy who was pushed into a road as a prank, which caused the oncoming car to crash, killing all passengers. The hotel/auto-graveyard and the final scene where Max encourages Lucy to kill him with her car suggest that Max was that young fellow who inadvertently took innocent lives; and perhaps driven mad by guilt, he's recreated the accidents over and over again (keeping the crashed cars at his "hotel") until finally he decides to push someone (Lucy) to the point where she will intentionally run him down. I think this explanation holds together given the clues in the film; but even so it's not much of a payoff. It doesn't do much to elevate the film beyond its genre and the cliché of a crazy guy in the country tormenting innocent city folk.4) The aspect of the film which really killed it for me was its reliance on the horror/thriller cliché of the apparently-superhuman stalker, who seems to have the ability to know exactly where the victims will be & what they will do, and to transport himself from one location to another in seconds, so he can lurk menacingly in the background as our heroes pass by, or become invisible to pull Lucy's hair, or gain access to their car undetected when they are only a few feet away. When we realize that Tom & Lucy are being stalked by just one guy who moves hotel signs around to get them lost, the sense of menace drops considerably. Admittedly, Tom & Lucy wouldn't know this - but for the viewers it stretches plausibility past the breaking point. And how did Max manage to stage dozens and dozens of accidents (resulting in the many crashed cars piled up at the hotel) without anyone catching on over the years? This very human villain seems to be able to acquire supernatural powers when the plot requires it.