Fear, 2023.
Directed by Deon Taylor.
Starring Joseph Sikora, Ruby Modine, Iddo Goldberg, Andrew Bachelor, Annie Ilonzeh, T.I., Terrence Jenkins, Jessica Allain, Tyler Abron, and Kevin Simon.
SYNOPSIS:
A much-needed getaway and a celebration weekend turns into a nightmare due to the contagious airborne threat.
Typically, a film set during the pandemic mentions COVID. In Deon Taylor’s Fear, this is awkwardly referred to by characters as a new variant of an airborne threat, as if the script (co-written by Deon Taylor and John Ferry) is afraid to utilize any specific language in connection with the real-world pandemic. As such, it’s practically impossible to tell whether Fear is set in reality and what his beliefs on COVID are, but one thing is certain; one quickly stops caring because the central horror is derivative beyond belief.
Rom (Joseph Sikora, a regular collaborator of Deon Taylor) is a respected author participating in an interview promoting the concept of his next book, which is a deep dive into the meaning of fear itself. He is also romantically entangled with Bianca (Annie Ilonzeh), eager to make a marriage proposal but consistently gets cold feet. Perhaps a vacation with their friends to a remote mountainside hotel will give him the confidence to pop that question and get over his commitment fears. Or maybe, it’s a historically haunted location that he uses as a backdrop to flesh out his next book without telling anyone what they are really doing there.
There isn’t a single subtle moment in Fear, as the owners are instantly creepy while the building gives off an eerie vibe. However, it’s not executed in a manner that provides chills (everything from the inexplicably desaturated color grading and inevitable CGI of witches is painful to look at), choosing to rely on the laziest loud noise jump scares. This rancid material is only made worse by the inept performances and one-dimensional characters that tell you everything you need to know through their appearances or 30 seconds exposition dumps briefly summarizing their greatest fear.
But I don’t want to come down hard on Fear for being a budget flick with few resources. No, the narrative here seems to think that supernatural entities using the characters’ fears against themselves to induce suicide is refreshing, so long as some baffling pandemic nonsense is thrown in. Aside from a scene where one character repeatedly bashes his head against a toilet, there’s also nothing exciting to note about the deaths. Characters turn against each other, believing that they are being targeted by a pandemic rather than witches, which eventually leads to someone concluding that they can’t be killed if they aren’t afraid, which feels like dangerous rhetoric to place in a COVID-adjacent horror movie.
There’s also the fact that none of the fears on display are relatively engaging or thought-out. Instead, it’s another opportunity to reach into the grab bag of horror clichés. When characters finally started getting killed off, I had already forgotten their fears and had to rely on deciphering the scene itself to remember, which is easy enough. It’s a testament to how forgettable and, at times, embarrassing Fear is.
Deon Taylor doesn’t exactly have a good track record (The Intruder, Meet the Blacks), so over the years, watching his latest work has become a cinematic fear of mine. It has not changed with Fear.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
