Senteur
As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.
Myron Clemons
A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.
Jakoba
True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.
evanlmcdonald
If you enjoy movies that are filled with mindless torment and pain than this is your movie! This movies is basically about a couple that have only know each other for 2 weeks and want to go on some kind of vacation and them everything goes to hell! They get stuck in back roads that are like a maze and get lost and go someone puts them through horrible crap to drive them crazy and maybe kill them while they are trying to get away to safety and get where they were originally planning to go/visitAgain this movie is garbage unless you like mindless torment and pain to helpless innocent people this is the perfect movie for you!
E. Hatt-Swank
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.
lazyaceuk
SOME SPOILERSI was scanning the TV pages and this film had a great write up so I thought I would give it a chance as I rate the reviewer and although it was a 'smaller' film than I expected, I was not disappointed.The IMDb fan base scores this as 5.5 at time of writing which I think is far too low.I have scored this as a 7 because for a long time I found a true chiller that had me on the edge of my seat. Far bigger budgets try to fill the screen with CGI and sudden shocks and fail because of the compromise to sell to the market.The film is produced by Big Talk whose TV CV is high end but that does not always transfer to the big screen. That this film debuted at Sundance speaks highly of its aspirations and it certainly would have made a good B flick in the days when you used to get two solid films for your money at the cinema. It was not that long ago either.The story surrounds a young man and a young woman who are heading to an isolated hotel for an engagement. The fact the engagement is celebrating two weeks rather than any thing extensive becomes clearer as the film unravels and the lack of intimate knowledge becomes key to how they react to each other, especially as the hotel is more non existent than isolated.Travelling by car our two young friends are guided on their path by a faceless person in a land rover. All seems good after the land rover departs and the couple head towards the hotel, but not long into the journey 'sat navs' and maps become pointless and the road signs seem to just direct them in circles.As darkness descends and it becomes clear that they are being targeted by one if not more unsavoury characters the couple try and escape the tight country lanes but without any joy as the car's fuel tank heads towards empty.This was the first time I had seen Alice Englert on screen and I found her performance very good adding layers of emotion and complexity in a very easy manner as the film became a roller-coaster of fear towards its conclusion. The young man is played by Iain De Caestecker who many will know as 'Fitz' from 'Agents of Shield' but who first came onto my radar in a BBC production called 'The Fades'. He can often play many of his roles with a wide mouth had a certain intensity that he kept just under the his main performance making a final scene somewhat surprising.The film has a third player whose role is well beyond spoilers so I will merely mention that Allen Leech, yes he of Downton fame, is suitably nasty and very believable.I've checked through IMDb and have no real knowledge of the writer/director's (Ian Lovering) previous work, other than an episode of Sherlock, but that really is a Moffat/Gattis affair to be honest. I just hope that Lovering did not base this on reality.The ending provides a few unexpected twists and overall, as I mentioned I think the IMDb scores are too low.Worth a watch.
Martin Bradley
"In Fear" is a small budget British horror movie that disappeared before anyone even knew it was out there, which is something of a pity since Jeremy Lovering's debut displays both flair and imagination and provides all the requisite chills. Tom, (Iain De Caestecker), and Lucy, (Alice Englert), arrive in Ireland for a music festival but get lost in what we tend to call 'the middle of nowhere'; easily done, I remember once driving around in circles in a part of County Donegal I really should have known. After stopping to get their bearings a mysterious man in a mask attacks Lucy and in their attempt to get away they first knock down and then pick up a stranger, ("Downton Abbey's Allen Leech, very good).There's nothing particularly original about any of this, of course, but through judicious editing and some superbly atmospheric cinematography Lovering manages to create a nightmare scenario. Maybe it's because I live in a part of Ireland where I can imagine this kind of thing happening that I found the film so effective or perhaps it's just that Lovering has managed to get so much out of so little. Either way, "In Fear" is one well worth seeking out.
