Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.5

In Fear Blu-ray Movie Review

Not exactly the highway to hell, but a suitably scary road trip nonetheless.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman March 16, 2014

There's definitely a place for the big, unstoppable, hideous slasher in Horror. The very real and very tangible fear of the menacing brute bearing down on a hapless and hopeless victim, ready to kill and unmercifully so, certainly makes for a frightening genre staple that was the face of Horror for a couple of decades past. The genre then moved away from the likes of Freddy and Jason (with some returns to 1980s glory in films like Hatchet) and focused more on The Ring-inspired Supernatural Horror, Paranormal Activity-inspired paranormal Horror, and "POV" The Blair Witch Project-inspired Horror. No longer was it the boogeyman chasing one through the woods but rather a different kind of unstoppable force bearing down on people, a force that could not seemingly be slowed down, never mind destroyed. Yet for all the money these movies make, for all the scares they engender, for as iconic as so many have become, it's yet a third variety of Horror that's perhaps the most fundamentally frightening, and that's Horror based on some sort of relatable realism. In Fear tells the story of two young lovers caught up in a devilish game of manipulation and terror on Ireland's windy backroads where only a wrong turn might lead to salvation, where even the sunrise cannot guarantee safe passage back out of a manmade hell on Earth.

I don't know about you, but I'm definitely in fear.

Tom (Iain De Caestecker) and new girlfriend Lucy (Alice Englert) barely know one another but have agreed on a date to an Irish festival. They're to meet some friends but beforehand stop at a bar where both find themselves in petty conflict with other patrons. The matter seems incidental at worst. Tom surprises Lucy with a trip to a remote romantic getaway destination. She's hesitant but ultimately convinced. The two make their way to the isolated locale, guided by a vehicle they assume to be in the employ of the retreat. Along the way, they're left alone but manage to find their way to the resort's entryway. Inside, they seem only to travel in circles with no way further in and seemingly no way out. As night falls, they begin to realize that they're being stalked by at least one nefarious individual who has other than facilitating their romantic happiness on his agenda.

It's nice to escape into a breed of Horror that's not reliant on the same old songs-and-dances that the genre has of late been spitting out at audiences. In Fear proves capable and only occasionally listless as it valiantly efforts not to reshape the genre but to remind audiences that scares aren't necessarily exclusive to those other sorts of movies that dominate the Horror landscape. The real fear comes out of real life, a real life scenario that's frighteningly plausible but just far enough away from practical to walk the fine line necessary to engage the audience without alienating the audience. The story banks on classic Horror elements such as isolation, confusion, and an unknown enemy manipulating the heroes at every turn, at first without their knowledge and still later after they've discovered that something is both amiss and that there's someone behind the proverbial curtain. There's not quite enough to keep the momentum going at full tilt from start to finish, but the film, to its credit, keeps things short and relatively sweet, rarely taking its foot off the gas and allowing the characters' innermost terrors to materialize the further they descend into what becomes an inescapable and largely unexplainable scenario.

Director Jeremy Lovering's film is also capably moody, critical to the success of any film hoping to capitalize on plausible real-life terror. The picture makes good use of its limited resources, beautifully displaying the vast openness and isolation of the Irish countryside early on before the sun goes down and, later, squeezing every last ounce of life from the car and the veritable maze of darkened green through which the protagonists drive, over and over and over again. The film effectively builds its tension to a boiling point, beginning with what amounts to a wayward but entertaining adventure of wrong turns and gradually becoming something obviously more sinister. The audience is in on the terror a bit ahead of the characters; the film creates just enough unease early on (and the title obviously helps conjure a specific image, too) to identify that something's not right. The fun is in discovering what isn't right, who's behind it, and why, though certainly there's a case to be made that failure to answer these questions is just as terrifyingly advantageous as fleshing it all out in a nice and tidy final few minutes. Where the film goes and how much it answers is obviously best left experienced rather than spoiled. Suffice it to say, In Fear never much escapes from the realm of the plausible and leaves audiences pondering the entire situation even after the credits roll.

In Fear Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

In Fear sports a fair-to-good high definition transfer. The image features decent clarity and color, but it never quite finds the exacting precision, definition, and natural shading enjoyed by top-end film and digital presentations. Here, grassy fields, skin and clothing textures, and other fine object details rank in the middle of the pack at best. Grasses in particular fail to showcase that lifelike individuality. Stains and water droplets on the car windshield are nicely revealed early on and before darkness' onset. Colors aren't dull but they aren't bold and precise, either, falling into a slightly murky middle ground which is largely negated by the cover of dark that defines much of the film. Still, bright red blood and other splashes of color enjoy rather accurate presentations. The image suffers from the occasional bout of aliasing and jagged edges. Black levels are fair, never drifting too pale nor too dark, while flesh tones appear fairly rendered. All around, a slightly troubled but consistently fair image from Anchor Bay.

In Fear Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

In Fear's Dolby TrueHD 5.1 lossless soundtrack performs admirably. There's good musical surround usage at the beginning, supported by a deep, heavy low end. The surround speakers are not frequently used but are instead smartly used, helping to provide a more immersive atmosphere to both music and ambient support elements like crunching leaves underfoot, gusty winds, and general country insect ambience. There are several more potent sound effects that are delivered clearly and with strong stage presence and definition, the best, perhaps, being a blaring car horn that passes for real life and floods the soundstage with its shrieking alarm. Much of the film is comprised of simple dialogue exchanges that play with natural stage presence and clarity, whether normal conversation, hushed whispers, or screams. All in all, the track is nothing spectacularly memorable, but it satisfies in every area of concern.

In Fear Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

In Fear contains only 'In Fear:' Behind the Scenes (HD, 12:50), a piece that looks at the actors' lack of foreknowledge of how the movie would end, the film's story and themes, the casting process, working without a firm script, shooting chronologically, filming location climate, and more.

In Fear Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

In Fear neither redefines its genre nor truly grips its audience, but it's a workable, largely enjoyable little escape from the Horror doldrums into something a little less stylized and lame and a bit more believable and immersive. The film sports a solid atmosphere, a fair story, good pacing, smart direction, and fine performances. Horror fans could do much worse than giving this one a spin. Anchor Bay's Blu-ray release of In Fear features decent video and audio. Supplements are limited to a single feature. Definitely worth a rental and perhaps a purchase at a more aggressive price.