Fear X (2003)

I saw this before a long while ago, and mostly remembered the really good atmosphere (those small town views are priceless), which was still there this second time around. The story is really interesting for a long time, but when a lot is revealed in the scene with the characters Adamson (he is some sort of police chief or judge) and Peter (and one other guy - also police), it all becomes quite inane and uninteresting. In my mind, things stayed much more unclear and dark when I first viewed it. Too bad.The atmosphere still stands though, and the two stories of two men (families) in different, distant states is still interesting up to a point. The little mysterious and arty bits that director Nicolas Winding Refn put in here and there (a red lit hand, a face pressing through some piece of clothing and some special effects kind of thing) really added little or nothing to the whole. The acting is pretty much perfect, though.Another film that has quite a few qualities, but is ultimately rather inane. In such cases, I am mostly lenient; 5 out of 10.

I'm a big fan of Refn, love the Pusher Trilogy, Bleeder, Bronson etc.But this, this was bloody awful.It goes NOWHERE.We have excruciatingly drawn out scenes and I got sick to death of John Turturro's pathetic gazes. His acting was pretty dismal as well.Where is the story? Where? Fear X is about a man who tries to find out why/who killed his wife. Yet, onwards from this 'plot' the whole film falls apart, not that it was together in the first place.Fear X tries to be suspenseful but you are wanting the pace of the film to speed up and get down to some action of some sort.Like I said there are long drawn out scenes where characters just stand there and take forever to deliver their tedious lines. BORING.It isn't clever film making, it isn't thrilling, its bloody boring.I found FEar X to be completely void of anything interesting. It just crawls along delivering nothing but stupid camera work that looks like its trying to be something from The Shining.And the ending was just the icing of the cake. Absolutely abysmal.Refn and co, this truly is a stinker.

The first English language film from Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn is a bizarre but powerful little thriller which although nothing much really happens it has a hypnotic feel to it. John Turturro is simply brilliant in this and is completely drawn to trying to track down the man responsible for the murder of his wife. He plays a mall security guard called Harry Caine, who covers his wall in pictures of potential suspects and watches videos of people walking through his shopping precinct in hope of some clues.One day he has suspicions of a house opposite his and breaks in and finds a photo negative on the floor, he has this developed and on closer inspection this leads him to a town in Wisconsin and asking questions which stir up things. This is quite an unnerving and edgy and stylistically Refn takes a lot of inspiration from Stanley Kubrick and uses the colour red and freakish dream images to create something very odd. This is based on a story by Hubert Selby Jnr. and like Requiem For A Dream this is unusual but not as disturbing. Rounding out the cast are Deborah Kara Unger and James Remar, who is also very good and plays his character like a man with a death sentence hanging over him.Good film, pretty .. pretty good and also very under-rated and overlooked. Turturro brilliant!

The music is good-- adds suspense. The photography is great. However, there is no plot or story. I was excited when it was rated 3 stars as a movie for Encore showing. About halfway through the movie, I kept feeling that there were some parts cut out of it or perhaps I went into a coma and missed some connections. I even went through and replayed some parts to see if I missed an integral clue. I have a master's degree in psychology and enjoy a good read as well as a good movie plot. I felt lost at the end of this movie. I wondered what actually happened. Was it a joke on the audience? What was the purpose of some of the characters in the movie because there did not seem to be a connection to some of them. I was very disappointed and even angry that I spent my time watching this movie. I like plot teasers and movies in which you have to view over again to get the point-- such as with The Sixth Sense. However, The Sixth Sense had a plot. I was so angry that I even decided to make a comment about it, which is rare for me.