In Fear (2014)

************** ***SPOILERS*** **************The film starts off a little oddly with a confusing bathroom scene and then a curious decision by Tom to take his new girlfriend Lucy to a hotel for the night instead of going straight to a music festival, where they each have friends waiting for them, like they had originally planned. Nevertheless it picks up and the suspense starts to build nicely as Tom and Lucy get lost on their way to the hotel and end up passing the same landmarks multiple times. Lucy catches a couple of glimpses of a mysterious figure seemingly stalking the young couple. They are caught up in a ghoulish maze in the Irish countryside and can't seem to find their way back out. After a few more run-ins with the mystery figure the couple is starting to panic. The stalker is becoming more and more aggressive and the couple is running out of petrol. They need to find their way out. The suspense is really ramping up at this point....And then it flatlines. As Tom and Lucy are racing to find their way out they nearly run over a bloodied man standing in the road. The man, named Max, gets in their car and says he too is being hunted by this figure and he knows how to get out. Turns out Max is actually the stalker who has been chasing Lucy and Tom around. This would be all well and good if not for the fact that Max looks more like an IT administrator than a maniacal backwoods murderer. This is who we're supposed to be "in fear" of? The second the mystery figure was revealed all the suspense that had been building went out the window for me. I found it way more captivating when the identity of the stalker(s) was left a mystery. My second biggest issue was the behavior of Lucy and Tom. Other reviewers have commented on their lack of chemistry, but I'm OK with that given the fact that they've only been a couple for 2 weeks and still don't really know each other too well. Where my issue lies is in the way they react to their situation. Constantly leaving their car to check things out even after they've had physical altercations with their stalker. Why are you leaving the car when you know a potential killer is following you around? They each leave their car numerous times, often alone with the other person staying put. Why would they separate? It just seems so foolish and not at all how people in real life would act.Thirdly, the ending. It's another one of those "deep" endings where you're supposed to come up with your own hypothesis of what ended up happening. In my opinion it seemed like the writer couldn't quite come up with a good enough ending so he left it up to the audience to create their own. For some movies those types of endings work well, In Fear is not one of them.To sum it up, this movie started out well and was building as if it was going to be a really good film. However at the climax it completely fell flat for me. I was really disappointed because up until the big reveal it had me hooked and I was willing to look past the ridiculous behavior of our young couple. In the end, though, it just couldn't maintain that momentum. I would still say In Fear is worth a watch though as it seems some people really enjoyed it.

I saw this British scary movie being discussed on Film 2013 with Claudia Winkleman and Danny Leigh, they gave it some good comments, and it was rated well by critics as well, I was hoping it would be a good offering from my home country. Basically Tom (Iain De Caestecker) and Lucy (Alice Englert) have only been dating two weeks, but he has invited her to join him with friends at a music festival, he has booked a room online at the Kilairney House Hotel, which is hidden away in a remote location on a series of roads in the Irish countryside, before making their way there Tom has a confrontation with some locals in a pub the couple stop at. Tom and Lucy find themselves going in circles as the they travel the empty back road to the hotel, despite following signs, and their satnav stops working, they realise that they are returning to the same point no matter what route they take, and cannot get back to the main road, but stranger things start happening when they occasionally stop and Lucy spots a masked man in the darkness, and she is grabbed by someone. While speeding away from their attacker Tom clips someone on the road, they pick the man up, he says his name is Max (Allen Leech) and claims to be under attack from the same people stalking the couple, but slowly he reveals himself as the true culprit, eventually Max, following a tormenting confrontation, is kicked out the car by Tom, they fight, but Tom has his wrists broken. After driving away Tom and Lucy are forced to use torches and search the woods as their car is running out of petrol, but Tom is grabbed in the darkness and disappears, returning to the car alone Lucy finds the petrol canister on the front seat, she refills and finds the satnav mysteriously working again, she uses it to eventually find the hotel, but it is abandoned, the car park is a graveyard of derelict cars, so Lucy and Tom are not the first victims of this terror. Max returns in a Land Rover and chases Lucy, when she is able to stop she finds a tube running from the exhaust pipe to the boot, opening the boot she discovers Tom bound and dead inside from carbon monoxide poisoning through the tube forced down his throat. Day breaks and Lucy manages to find her way back onto the main road, but as she drives over a lonely moor she sees Max standing in the distance in the middle of the road, he stretches his arms out and smiles at her, in rage Lucy slams her foot on the accelerator and speeds towards Max, the film black out at the point he would be struck. Only consisting of three actors, they all do their parts well, this is a very simple but effective scary movie, there is no monster in the dark and no special effects, it is simply two characters in a confined space terrified by what is outside as they are tormented by a bloke with a grudge, it is a good choice of location, and throughout you have the feelings of suspicion, paranoia and claustrophobia, a worthwhile psychological horror. Good!

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.

Spoilers here, don't read if you haven't watched and plan on watching (despite all the bad reviews).As stated before, the first half or so is quite good and gripping. Then it starts to repeat itself and after the baddie is revealed I think I dozed off a few times.Good stuff is decent cinematography and acting, good atmosphere for the most part. The soundtrack is quite good to a point that it's even distracting (more interesting than the movie itself).The worst thing is that the script makes very little sense. It leads to believe that there might be a supernatural poltergeist thing going on (pulling the hair, closing doors, clothes scattered around), but in the end it's not. Or maybe the baddie is a superhuman like someone suggested.Not recommended.