Living in Fear

LIVING IN FEAR is the kind of movie we've all seen before--and here at least it's told with a moderate amount of suspense diluted by a back and forth suspicion that the husband may or may not be a killer. I say diluted because along the way motives become fuzzy and it isn't until we learn the whole truth at the end that we see how neatly everything was manipulated to keep us watching. It's the kind of story where you can't see how it's all going to be resolved--nor which characters will survive the climactic confrontation at the finale.

I'd say it's a better than average made-for-TV movie that creates suspense in a rather mechanical way. Performances are credible, especially William R. Moses who seems to specialize in these kind of ambiguous roles in stories of scare and menace. Marcia Cross is efficient enough as his mystified wife and John Saxon is seen briefly in a cameo role.

Not bad as these sort of things go but not up to Agatha Christie level either.

Living in Fear is a far cry from William R. Moses's film that I watched before this, Alone with a Stranger. I would recommend this if you want an actual thriller that contains twists and turns, and leaves you guessing to the very end. This plotline made more sense compared to Alone with a Stranger. It captured the emotional pain and suffering that so many people carry with them from childhood.

Chuck Hausman (William R. Moses) returns to the community where he was born and raised with his new wife Rebecca (Marcia Cross). The town, Deerfield, is tight-knit, isolated, and not to mention, somewhat creepy. The residents are typical small town folk: gossipy, nosy, judgmental, and close-minded. Chuck is returning for the reading of his father's, reverend Leo Hausman, will, who traumatized him with routine belt beatings. The people who knew Leo have always despised Chuck - they placed the blame on him for a murder that happened 20 years ago. Rebecca soon finds herself in an unsettling position of wondering if she married a killer, or if he's innocent, and the people in the town have just always held a grudge against him.

William R. Moses and Marcia Cross star as Chuck and his wife Rebecca in Living in Fear, which was probably a tv movie.

Moses' fiancee was killed some 20 years earlier, and most of the town thinks he killed her. With his estranged pastor father's death, he returns to his home town with his wife to deal with his father's house and estate.

Turns out he hasn't been particularly forthcoming about his past so Rebecca has a few unpleasant surprises- the accusation of murder by the town, another old girlfriend who wants to see him; when she winds up dead, his wife starts to get nervous.

There are also people who had an investment partnership with the pastor. In his will, he says he lost all the money. They aren't convinced and want it back.

Kind of a blah movie and you can guess where it's going right away.

I was up watching BBC1 round about midnight so guess what was on ? That`s right an American TVM which was called LIVING IN FEAR and amazingly didn`t star Jane Seymour or Victoria Principal in a disease of the week plot . But that didn`t stop this TVM from being formuliac . As in all these type of films it starts with a dramatic flashback over the opening titles - A woman falling down a flight of steps - then a caption appears informing us that it`s now twenty years later as a newly wed couple arrive in town . And being a TVM it`s a middle American town while the newly weds - Chuck and Rebecca - are middle American white Anglo-Saxon protestants . Suffice to say Chuck has a very dark secret from his past and Rebecca soon finds herself in mortal peril . The only difference between LIVING IN FEAR and most other TVMs is that this one is slightly more violent than the usual fare and contains the F word a couple of times

Oh hold on there ! If it contains the F word then it surely can`t be one of those American mainstream network TVMs . Then why is it written , directed and acted as if it is ?

I thought Billy Moses (so known in his youthful acting days) displayed the frustrated anger of an abused child so believably in this film. Best effort from him I've ever observed. Powerless anger is a complex emotion and he nailed it. It can't be easy to show anger, pain, and frustration in the same tearful face. It's not that I don't have a life, but did anybody else notice that the license plate on his preserved boyhood Mustang was the exact same as on James Garner's ROCKFORD FILES Firebird 30 years ago. Please, somebody. I was especially impressed by this abused character being unable to accept harsh military discipline and faking mental illness to escape that commitment. How many young men in jails, prisons and stockades are there because of unresolved anger from childhood abuse? And that admission by his character complicated the revelation of his innocence. This movie is more than just a two-hour MURDER SHE WROTE, but the complex story of a father's botched love for his fearful son. It challenges the Biblical admonition of spare the rod and spoil the child when a religious man goes off discipline's deep, dark end. The they-lived-happily-ever-after ending was ambiguous at best and most of us would have loved to have seen the money actually returned to its rightful owners not just alluded to.