Review: "In Fear"

The second most invaluable thing towards the typical success of a good horror movie is a great expressive face to focus in on. The first, of course, is a controlled sense of spatial relations and lighting to craft a sense of atmosphere and dread. In Fear has both and the second is especially promising with Alice Englert as half of a new couple, along with Iain De Caestecker, getting lost in the tangled woods of an English countryside.

Englert previously proved her mettle in the underrated Ginger & Rosa, another film, like In Fear, that kind of falls apart at the end but holds so much auspicious possibility prior to that. Director Jeremy Lovering provides a wonderful sense of maddeningly being lost and the world seeming to close in on you. The film nicely ekes out anxiety by making every last inch of its setting feel menacing and then cutting to Englert’s controlled but worried face. 

But though it boasts the necessary fundamentals to create a successful horror movie, In Fear is more than a little underwhelming. The film too often feels like it was being written as the production went along, and that's because it actually was, with the actors being left in the dark and forced to improvise with very little sense of direction as to where the story was going from Lovering. There is barely enough plot to sustain this and the actors desperately grasp to make something marginally substantial out of the thinness of the conceit at hand. That being: Tom (De Caestecker) invites Lucy (Englert) to a music festival and on the way there tells her he has made reservations at a tucked away hotel, all the better to jumpstart their two week old relationship. Lucy reluctantly agrees, and soon they find themselves in a maze of backwood roads that never seem to end and fold in on themselves. 

There seems to be a casual joke about the sexes here. Tom refuses to look at the map or stop and ask for directions. As he tries to assert his manhood and prove himself a worthy boyfriend, he sinks the two deeper into trouble.

The film gets a lot out of a little, pulling big scares out of small but freaky things happening, like the appearance and disappearance of items in the middle of the road. But at a certain point, it becomes clear Lovering (who is also credited with scripting the little of the film that was apparently penned) has no idea where he is taking this story or how to end it. In the end, it’s more frustrating than frightening. 

Grade: C+