Be Afraid

Not long after John Chambers and his family arrive at their new home in a small country town in Pennsylvania, John begins to experience sleep paralysis. Lying there paralyzed, trapped within his own nightmare, other-worldly beings visit.

The highlight of this film is that it stars Brian Krause, who is one of the greats in genre cinema. Between "Sleepwalkers" and "Charmed" he has really made a name for himself. Sure, there were a few duds... like, what the heck is up with "Camel Spiders"? But overall, always a pleasure to see Krause.

That being said, this is neither one of his great films or his duds. And he is, of course, quite good. But the film as a whole is just so-so, something to pass the time in October, but nothing that will become a holiday standard or must-see. It just sort of... exists.

Pregnant mom with the baby crazies. History of miscarriages. Useless clueless husband almost clinically retarded. Other kids who are wise and disbelieved. The town and local cops are in on it. Zillow unaware the house is a possessed pit to hell.

A medium-budget production.The topic of a little boy or of a little girl who sees "dead people" is quite overused but sometime it still works. This is not one of those times... As I wrote on the summary the movie is pretty much boring....So boring that I stopped to watch it before the end.Not enough action, few and poor special effect,common and predictable dialogues.Btw I guess that if seen by a child it can be a quite scary movie.

A solid story, good acting and sufficiently spooky!

Saw 'Be Afraid', being fond of horror regardless of budget (even if not my favourite genre) and being intrigued somewhat by the idea. Being behind on my film watching and reviewing, with a long to watch and review list that keeps getting longer, it took me a while to get round to watching and reviewing it.

Giving 'Be Afraid' a fair chance with being interest and apprehension, it turned out to be far better than expected. Won't say that 'Be Afraid' is a great film because it isn't and the potential, while not wasted, is not fully lived up to. Considering the large number of films seen recently being mediocre and less and wasting potential, was expecting worse and was relieved that while wanting in a fair few areas it was actually one of my better recent low-budget viewings.

'Be Afraid' started off quite well, the first twenty minutes or so starting the film off on a promising, unsettling and atmospheric note that really does intrigue.

Production values did have some eeriness and nowhere near as cheap as expected, and the music, which not the most memorable in the world, didn't detract from the atmosphere.

The setting is effectively spooky and the acting was better than average all round. There are spooky and suspenseful moments and it isn't dull. The direction doesn't feel phoned in.

However, the story was severely wanting. It is very disjointed and after the promising start the final third especially loses atmosphere, one loses interest and things start to not make sense. Too much of the film is vague and doesn't explore some elements and story strands enough, some dropped soon after being introduced, go nowhere or serve much point.

Ending is unsatisfying, on top of feeling hasty there are too many loose ends hanging in the air. Got the sense that the writers didn't know how to end the film. Would have liked much more tension and suspense, scares could have been more consistent and some weren't surprising enough.

Found too the script to lack natural flow and with a bit of cheese going on, and the characters bland with some adopting some annoying and not always logical decision making.

Overall, better than expected but not great still. 5/10 Bethany Cox