This review contains spoilers.
Picture yourself walking through a Blockbuster in 2005. You walk to the back of the store and see a DVD with a question mark and the text, “FEAR.” You rent it, pop it into the DVD player and proceed to waste the next 100 minutes of your life with the most shallow characters, cliché scares and derivative plot beats imaginable. That’s exactly how I felt while watching this 2023 theatrical release.
In an age when there are a seemingly endless amount of streaming services producing dull, downright awful horror films, it is simply baffling to me that “Fear” got a theatrical release. This film feels right at home at the very bottom of the $5 Walmart movie bin, not a movie theater.
On the other hand, it feels insulting to all the downright fantastic films of all genres that are being limited to streaming services instead of theatrical releases. While brilliant films such as “I’m Thinking of Ending Things,” “The Sound of Metal” and “The Tragedy Macbeth” are all limited to streaming services and extremely small, limited theatrical runs, uninspired slop like “Fear” is able to receive a wide release.
On its surface, “Fear” has a good enough premise. The film hinges on the concept of a haunted hotel that attacks its residents through their deepest fears. The concept alone is quite good and can explore a seemingly endless amount of both silly, irrational fears and/or existential dread. Seriously, this concept could be taken in so many interesting directions. However, “Fear” decides to use the concept in the least thoughtful way possible.
The fears are about as boring and uninteresting as the characters themselves. Drowning, suffocation and not being in control are some of the fears that this film tries to incorporate into the horror. It fails miserably, resulting in derivative, boring sequences that lead to awful kills.
“Fear” genuinely fails on all levels of filmmaking. The cinematography is mostly flat outside of a few thoughtful shots, the editing is awful and paced terribly and the audio is genuinely baffling at times. There are multiple times when the character’s dialogue jumps up much louder than the previous line.
The VFX used to create the entity that tormented the group was embarrassingly bad. I genuinely don’t understand what it was even supposed to be. The only thing I could make out were grey tentacles that looked more in line with the Marvel character, Venom, than any witch or demon.
The acting from the entire ensemble is also horrendous. The most recognizable name in the cast has to be Andrew Bachelor, a former Vine star known better as King Bach. His acting is about as good as you would expect from a social media influencer. However, even more established actors present here, such as Joseph Sikora and Ruby Modine, are equally as bad as Bachelor.
I honestly do not understand the message that “Fear” was trying to convey. The narrative is set during a pandemic. Though they wouldn’t specifically say the words “coronavirus” or “COVID-19,” it was abundantly clear that the film was trying to be set during the COVID-19 pandemic. This itself would be perfectly fine if the film decided to take a mature, thoughtful approach to the inherent fear that comes with battling a pandemic. However, this film makes the baffling decision to downplay their surrogate coronavirus pandemic. Full spoilers ahead: the film resolves by telling the audience that there was nothing to fear and that the news about the pandemic was fake.
I don’t think I need to point out how that can easily be taken the wrong way. The final conclusion stating that the “news was wrong” is simply strange. This comes as an odd change of direction compared to the rest of the film in regards to their treatment of the in-movie pandemic.
There are very few films that I will actively encourage one to not see. However, “Fear” is one of these films. It is not worth your time and money. It’s messy, unfocused and simply not scary. There are so many better ways to spend 100 minutes.
1.5/10
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