Uma Noite para Esquecer

In Fear seems like another one of those teen horror movies that lazily throws whatever a generic horror movie usually brings. Surprisingly, it ends up offering more than a typical horror fare. It is basically an indie-horror film that plays mind games with the audience. It's an intriguing concept indeed, it goes a lot of fun when it presents its plot, but it eventually falters when it hits to its twists and turns. In Fear has a great potential at first. The last act may be pretty senseless, but throughout the film is a watchable cinematic perplex.

The film mainly takes place in a car, spending most of the time with the characters talking about their relationship. Nobody knows about their fate as they drive around the woods, which lets their emotions toward the situation manifest the fear. Everything is a mystery, and getting exasperated by the lack of knowing what the threat is what makes the set up pretty exciting. The ride is remarkable when it doesn't rely on the generic horror tricks, just let the atmospheric tone and the perplex speak the horror. And this is why it's a shame for the film to use jumpy sound effects in some part because it quite hurts the terror. But the coldness still takes over the experience.

When it finally reveals the enemy, it totally stops making sense. Though it doesn't really have to make sense as long as it's "scary", but no. This certain twist suffers by its weak villain that forces things to be psychotic, but it didn't work, thus everyone won't likely bother to care much of the story anymore, unless it throws another twist that looks far more interesting than the other. Unfortunately, the conclusion is another mystery to figure out, and that is the least interesting one among the trip. I think it's only great when none of that is ever revealed. When it comes to the filmmaking, everything is all quite stunning. This is pretty obvious for an independent film, but the shots here just makes audience feel like they're sitting in the car with the characters. For the acting, the main two did a fine enough job.

The film currently gets a lot of praise, even a perfect score currently at Rotten Tomatoes, but seeing those hyperboles would just mess up the experience, because apparently the film is best seen if the viewer doesn't have any expectation or idea what it is about. The film would have been greater without knowing the second half at all, but that's just too silly to view it. In Fear is not exactly scary, the tip to enjoy what is happening is to keep it all mysterious. Therefore you'll get a sense of fun and anxiety, even if the conundrum at the finale is something that no one can really ignore.

Bored and looking for something to watch, I was browsing through lists of the best horror movies of 2013. The more and more "In Fear" appeared in them, the more my interest was piqued.

Well let's just say the anticipation of watching it was much more exciting than the actual process of watching it. All we have with "In Fear" is a poorly scripted, annoyingly repetitive horror movie that is carried along by a phenomenal score that is way better than it has any right to be. The sounds mesh with the images so well that there were moments that I still felt nervous, even though I knew what was going to happen, courtesy of the by-the-numbers script.

Tom and Lucy are two people that just met two weeks prior. On their way to a music festival in a nearby town, Tom decides to surprise Lucy by taking her to a hotel for a night...a rather questionable move for people that have just met. Thankfully, Lucy seems to be fine with it.

But there are some red flags from the outset: For one, the only way to get to the hotel is to follow a truck, whose owner they never see. Even more alarming? He points to a locked gate, insinuating that is where they should go next, before suddenly leaving them alone. I don't know about you, but that would be enough for me to get the hell out of there and never return, but Tom and Lucy, stupid horror characters that they are, do as they're instructed.

From here, we get thirty minutes of them driving around in circles, inexplicably continuing to follow the same signs to the motel even after learning it only takes them back to where they started. Somehow, these scenes manage to be creepy, at least at first, if for no other reason than the aforementioned score. Of course, once minute twenty rolls around of the same old thing, it starts to lose its luster. Then once Max arrives, things go from bad to worse, both for the characters, and for the viewer, leading to an abomination of an ending.

"In Fear" is certainly a competent example of independent filmmaking, at least from a visual standpoint, and I guess it deserves some points for that. It's well shot, well acted, well lit, and despite a few confusing cuts, pretty well edited. Unfortunately, the one thing it's missing, besides a shred of believability, is a halfway decent script. These characters are ones you've seen in dozens, if not hundreds, of horror movies before, in that they are clearly only reacting to the needs of the script; they do not act like normal people attempting to get out of a desperate situation, but rather. Put any real person in this situation, and it would be a five minute movie with no scares and no real action.

Come to think of it, I've essentially summed up "In Fear", only it somehow needs 85 minutes to do that.

Bringing together elements of, and to varying degrees echoing film such as 'The Blair Witch Project', 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and the fairly recent British nasties 'Kill List' and 'Eden Lake', director Jeremy Lovering brings us a tale of two people in an early days relationship getting lost in the woods. Relatively speaking, they are stranger to one another as well as to us, and one feels that in another writer/director's hands, this fact could have become more pertinent than it actually does here, which is a shame.

They are on their way to a music festival and are trying to find a hotel they are booked in at. Seems straightforward enough, right? Of course things don't go as planned; they find themselves driving in circles with no hotel to be seen. Next thing confusion and concern set in; as dusk draws close, the weather worsens, their fuel runs low, their map proves inaccurate, and the country roads they drive all begin to look the same, we are invited to feel the very real fear most of us can relate to, and it must be said in this at least, the film proves extremely effective. Indeed, the first hour or so of 'In Fear' had me gripped and actually feeling something I don't often have the pleasure of when watching a horror/thriller on my own: Genuinely spooked. The performances are reasonable and the tension nicely handled; Lovering's ability to generate palpable horror from a simple scenario and drag it out for quite so long IS impressive.

It is a shame, then, that when the time comes for the film to play its hand a little more, the tension is released and we enter a world of silliness; the reasoning for the situation arising in the first place and its justification seem flimsy. Shattered is the hope that we were going to be dealing with loftier themes of existential fear and relationships, or even something more down to earth and rooted in an important social element, ala 'Eden Lake'; the last twenty minutes takes a direction a lot more simple and I daresay boring, given the promise of the previous acts.

This guy will make a better film than this in future, but for now, this is a reasonable shot at something compelling, even if it falters in the last act. Worth a watch for the promise it makes with its fist hour.

In Fear is a tale of a young couple on their way to a festival, whom detour, at the request of the male half, to a remote idyllic hotel.

Things go horribly wrong.

Tension and paranoia builds nicely in the opening third of the movie. Our couple get lost in a network of country lanes, supposedly leading to the hotel, which turn out to be a maze. As dusk approaches, confusion and anxiety turn to fear and dread ...

This is about as much as I can divulge without spoiling anything, however, the plot from this point onwards goes from irritating to ridiculous. Painful-to-view clichés and "they'd never do that" type gaffs litter the movie until the end which, when it comes, leaves you wondering if the writer got stuck for an ending.

When it's tense, it works well but too much in this film went awry for me. I saw it at the FrightFest film festival and did speak to a lot of fans who loved it, but not I.

I could be wrong, so it's perhaps worth checking out, if you like a claustrophobic, low-budget vibe in your horror but if not, I'd tread with caution.

It's astonishing how they manage to induce terror with just a couple of actors, a car, rainy weather, and the wilderness. This is a case of low-budget filmmaking done well. Jeremy Lovering is an Edgar Wright collaborator, and his frame choices (with plenty of close-ups of the protagonists' worried faces) instantly draw you into the film. The score is also quite effective and adds to the creepy mood. The plot presents a total nightmare for folks who suffer from panic attacks - travel horror may not be a genre recommended for those people. The storyline progression is somewhat questionable, but the pacing remains apt.

The first key jumpscare happens at an unexpected juncture, and I think the film deserves some points on that front. The entry of the third character deflates the tension to some extent, yet the performances (of all three) keep you invested. Even from a psychological horror standpoint, the plausibility of certain developments lack finesse especially towards the end of the film. Nonetheless, I think it's a solid exercise in building tension and the atmospherics really add to that. If you liked Dead End, there's a good chance you'll savour this one too.