Fear Itself

This film is hard to categorise; it doesn't have a plot as such and is entirely made up or clips from horror films or films which contain elements of the genre. As we are shown the clips a narrator tells of how, following an accident, she has thought about the nature of fear and how it is used in film.

I'm not sure what I think of this... it was just so different. I had no knowledge of it before watching and when I saw it recommended on the BBC iPlayer I assumed it was a standard documentary about horror films. If you want to be scared you are likely to be disappointed as most of the clips aren't that frightening and the fairly emotionless narration of Amy Watson is calming rather than frightening; something I'm sure was deliberate. The selection of films was interesting; many will be familiar to most horror viewers but there were also plenty I'd not heard of before. They are taken from the earliest horror films right up to ones made recently. Overall I'd say this won't be for everybody but I'm glad I watched it... I'd recommend it as even if you don't enjoy it you might get some ideas for films to watch in future from the clips.

I'm not saying it's boring, but Amy Watson narrates the documentary in a soothing relaxed voice while clips of various films pass by. One reviewer says that the clips don't seem to hold any context with the storyline, but I think they do, in some way they relate to what she is saying, and the subject matter is always of course, fear itself. I recorded this when it was on the BBC and watched it in bed. 90 minutes is just right and I was able to get through it fine.

I had watched many of the films that were featured but the clips that are shown are hardly ever climatic scenes, as in , the one you would normally see scattered throughout trailers or other documentaries, in fact some of the scenes made me question if I had seen the film properly all the way through.

It's not great but it isn't terrible either.

A documentary (or is it?) about fear and how horror films exploit our reactions to achieve the desired ends. After a few minutes I was left thinking this can't possibly sustain my interest for 90+ minutes, but the exceptional vocal performance of the narrator and the sound-design which gives her work a dream-like quality build-up to create a whole that is more than the sum of its parts could be. It provokes some interesting reflections on our own complicity with what scares us and how we deal with it and invites reflections that will linger long after you finish watching.

We've all seen these TV programs about cinema in which they review some recent movie and then go over the filmography of its director or its main actor by showing a few clips from previous movies.

Well, "Fear Itself" is 90 minutes of just that: a selection of clips from horror movies of different sub-genres, with a narrator speaking about things like what fear is and what things we are afraid of. It doesn't sound too bad, does it? The thing is: quite frankly, she doesn't say anything interesting, the script is trite and her dull and monotonous way of speaking doesn't make things better. It feels like someone had the idea but then couldn't come up with a good text.

The clips themselves are short and generally not from the climatic parts of the movies. There's nothing frightening there, and even less when all the scenes are shown completely out of context. In many cases you can't even guess what the movies are really about. But some look good and might make you want to watch the movie. Don't expect any jump scares or cliffhangers, the documentary doesn't spoil the scenes themselves, but it DOES show the ending of a couple of movies ("Brazil", "Gravity").

In the end I got curious about a few of the movies and now I would like to watch them, so if I have to say something positive about this documentary, it is that. But don't expect anything else.

I gave up after five minutes. The narrator sounds like a high school drama student. Absolutely painful to listen to. Not soothing enough to be relaxing, just pure wood.