House of Fears

The fun house is well designed and has an eerie atmosphere, but the pointless clichéd themes between teenagers, characters who talk about staying together but don't stick to their decisions, and ineffective acting make the movie mediocre. The scarecrow and the clown stand out as the most effective horror elements. They tried to make a thriller with high excitement and high tempo. This is felt from time to time. Not bad, but I would like to say it could have been better. Despite its shortcomings, I liked the locations, the camera shooting technique and the use of color. It's not boring if you don't expect too much.

It sucks that imdb forces people to have to use 600 characters these days, despite the fact that some reviewers can leave a single sentence and their review is allowed to be posted. Maybe they pay for some premium membership, I cannot say.

But aside from my complaint about that, which in a way is helping me to satisfy the vapid IMDB need for 600 character reviews, as I stated in the title : THE MOVIE was JUST ok at times, but the set stole the show. It wasnt anything truly spectacular. It was just extensive. Either they shot in a number of locales or in one big studio lot. Or maybe they went to actual funhouses. They pulled a lot of strings and the quality of the film with its lighting and all was fairly good. It was just missing something to make it more palpable, including better acting. 5/10.

Every night I'll trundle upstairs to bed and stick a film on, very often I'll roll the dice and watch the first one I see on Youtube which is normally a big mistake.

This time I came across House Of Fears starring Corey Sevier and found myself interested in this mid budget horror title which has overwhelming similarities to Dark House (2009).

I ended up falling asleep and chose to pick it up the next day only to realise upon going on IMDb that I'd already seen it.

This is the first time this has ever happened, though a couple of scenes seemed familiar (Especially the sand pit part) I thought it was just because I watch so many films.

What does this tell you about House Of Fears? That though it isn't a bad film, it's instantly forgettable!

The Good:

Perfectly watchable effort

Decent concept

The Bad:

Generic Things I Learnt From This Movie:

I am capable of forgetting a watched a film altogether even when watched again!

A relatively tame film about teenagers who sneak into a common fear-themed haunted house attraction before it's due to open, where their fears actually can come to life and kill them because of an evil statuette. Possibly the lack of violent or sexual content was due to the movie being shot in the very Mormon state of Utah?

The things they're afraid of are not very focused, in that they don't just attack or kill the person who has the fear, but go after everybody. Some people get injured or killed by things that as far as we know, nobody was afraid of. It's a little weird that way. In the advertising for the film I'd read, there was mention of "sinister clowns, killer scarecrows." There's really only one of each and the clown barely gets any screen time at all.

The characters aren't particularly interesting. The women are pretty, while the guys are somewhat goofy-looking. Corri English's Samantha is a little more developed by virtue of some backstory accompanied by flashbacks which are fairly well-done.

Cydney Neil, former owner and operator of the Rocky Point Haunted House in Salt Lake City briefly appears as herself. A shame more use wasn't made of her.

The director is listed as the producer for an upcoming film titled Hell House, which oddly appears to have the same plot.

Six friends sneak into a haunted house the night before it opens for Halloween, only to find that their evening of fun has turned into their worst nightmare.

Corri English (playing Samantha) may now be known to horror fans who watch "Holliston" (if you do not watch it, you should), but she was largely unknown when appearing here in a starring role. On the flip side, Jared Padalecki (as "JP") was probably well-known at this point and appears anonymously (uncredited). How they got Padalecki is unclear.

The film has an interesting style and coloration (sort of a purposely blurry, washed-out look). And a haunted houses where the fears come to life is always a steady source of horror goodness. But I just did not see much to make this one stand out, and it has been understandably forgotten.