Scare Me Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		2.5

Scare Me Blu-ray Movie Review

Misery hates company.

Reviewed by Randy Miller III December 17, 2021

Having been recently impressed with director Josh Ruben's madcap horror-comedy Werewolves Within, now seemed like a good time to play catch-up with his first film, Scare Me, a Shudder original that made the festival rounds back in January and was released on Blu-ray from RLJ Entertainment two months later. Both films have similar core elements: a handful of characters stuck in a remote cabin, sharp dialogue, strong feminist overtones, and a few meta-surprises... but this freshman effort, for the most part, runs a pretty distant second. Simply put: it's about 40 minutes of decent ideas stretched to a feature-length film, and the seams aren't smoothed over particularly well.

Although Aya Cash from The Boys gets top billing here, Scare Me (for better or for worse) is Josh Ruben's show: the writer-director also stars as Fred Banks, an aspiring horror writer who just arrived at a remote cabin to finally churn out his first novel. It's there that he serendipitously meets Fannie Addie (Cash), a fellow horror writer whose novel Venus was a best-seller. During a power outage that evening, their playful banter becomes a game of one-upmanship when Fannie and Fred take turns trying to scare the hell out of each other. A third party later arrives in the form of pizza delivery guy Carlo (Chris Redd), who's also a horror hound because of course he is, and soon the party takes a left turn into much darker territory: eventually we'll meet the real Fred... unless he's just acting, of course.

Without question, Scare Me gets off to a good start. The overall premise and chemistry between its two leads is solid, and its playful meta-tone leads to more than a few genuinely inspired and unsettling moments. Sadly, it never fully delivers the goods: despite a few light scares during Fannie and Fred's first few rounds of play -- which are essentially acted out like an improv class and sweetened in post-production, sometimes to great effect -- most of their attempts ring hollow. But the arrival of Carlo marks the film's true downward spiral: he really doesn't add anything of interest to the proceedings and isn't particularly funny, either... yet even after his departure, Scare Me never quite captures the tone it achieves during the first act. This deviated path does lead to a few decent scares and the true intentions of Fred are thankfully kept vague, but it all adds up to a disjointed, patchwork production whose most enjoyable moments feel like nothing more than happy accidents. As a whole the story and its characters just never gel completely, as if not enough planning (or even script-writing) was done beforehand and too much was left to chance.

Cash does fine work as the annoyingly unproven but nonetheless confident Fannie, a character whose anger level can be measured by how hard she hits the "g" in "fucking". Rebecca Drysdale is a nice surprise as Bettina, an oblivious cab driver (and only the film's fourth speaking part) who comes full circle for a chuckle-worthy "stinger" during the end credits. Even Ruben acquits himself well enough as Fred, hamming it up with plenty of rubbery expressions and snarky beer swigs. But this first big acting job likely prevented him from focusing more intently on his other two duties, and I've got a nagging suspicion that Scare Me would've worked better with someone else in the lead role.

Despite these complaints, I didn't necessarily hate this film... not by a long shot. Its largely playful nature is juxtaposed with genuine horror and, while careful balance is rarely achieved, the mere existence of Werewolves Within is proof that Ruben probably learned from a few of the mistakes made here. It's worth a watch for late-comers like myself, and RLJ Entertainment's Blu-ray package offers at least a modest amount of support for the current asking price.

Scare Me Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

RLJ Entertainment's 1080p transfer offers a reasonably solid but occasionally uneven viewing experience. First, the good: Fine detail and textures during well-lit scenes, even cabin interiors, fare well enough and certain moments even wander into the territory of much larger-budgeted productions. Color saturation is also strong, with a striking amount of warmth balanced nicely with chilly exteriors during the power outage. Unfortunately, bad compression cripples a handful of scenes, including those shot in extreme darkness (screenshot #5) and others with heavier shadows, where black crush and posterization creep in and spoil the party. Gamma levels are also pretty questionable since black levels rarely run deep and, as a result, many scenes are flattened out considerably. I'm not sure how many of these issues are baked in to the source material (this is, after all, a low-budget production) and some of them aren't distracting or even noticeable in-motion... but even within those boundaries, there's room for improvement here.

Scare Me Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

I have no such reservations with the DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mix, which serves up an effective atmosphere that suits the film's wild mood swings with energy to spare. Dialogue is clean and crisp throughout, discrete effects add some excitement, and low frequency effects pop up to add support to the bottom end as well. While Scare Me doesn't break any particularly new ground for horror or comedy on either end of the broad genre spectrum, its enjoyable sound design is probably the film's best element and this Blu-ray seems to replicate it nicely from start to finish.

Optional English (SDH), French, and Spanish subtitles are offered during the main feature only.

Scare Me Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release ships in a keepcase with a slipcover and promotional insert. A few extras are on board.

• Make Cool Shit Podcast: Episode 1 (18:16) - This premiere episode of Josh Ruben's podcast, hosted by Aaron Keihfets, tracks the early development stages of Scare Me; later Season 1 episodes (which are available on Spotify) cover other parts of the production through its premiere at Sundance back in January.

• "Feel the Music, Feel the Light" Music Video (4:38) - A full version of the weird-ass pop song break during the film's second act. Ex Machina it ain't, folks, but at least they tried.

• Audio Commentary - A feature-length track with writer/director/actor Josh Ruben and cinematographer Brendan H. Banks, who offer a few interesting stories though some are repeated from the podcast.

• Q&As (4:13 total) - Two short Q&As with actor Aya Cash (1:26) and writer/director/actor Josh Ruben (2:47), who answer questions about their characters, horror cliches, favorite movies, and more.

• Outtakes (4:18)

• Behind-the-Scenes Photo Gallery

Scare Me Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Josh Ruben's debut film Scare Me doesn't have the spark of his recent follow-up Werewolves Within, but it starts out well and shows promise during a key stretches. Even so, it's more of a curiosity than a hidden gem but may get better with age. RLJ Entertainment's Blu-ray offers decent support aside from a few nagging video issues, as its lossless audio is very good and the bonus features add value to this low-priced package. Try before you buy, though.