Directed By Deon Taylor

Starring – Tyler Abron, Jessica Allain, Mezi Atwood

The Plot – A year into living through a worldwide pandemic, a group of friends gather in the remote Tahoe Mountains, to stay at the “Historic Strawberry Lodge”. What was supposed to be a much needed getaway and celebratory weekend, quickly turns into a waking nightmare. As the truth about the historic lodge slowly unravels in front of them, this group of friends will be pushed to the brink of survival.

Rated R for bloody violence and adult language

FEAR | Official Trailer 2 – YouTube

POSITIVES

Truthfully, very little actually works about “Fear”, but what does conveys the promise to the film that this possibly could’ve been had Taylor remained committed to the contemporary angle he was faithfully attempting. As to where other movies revolving around current day narratives attempt to include the pandemic as a means of connecting the worlds of film and reality, “Fear” feels like the first time where its inclusion actually warranted something tangible to the many dynamics introduced within this group’s longtime friendship. Because this film takes its time in the materializing of its conflict, it instead builds the bond in friendship of its group of protagonists with the kind of earnesty and chemistry that feels built for the tragedy of its deconstruction, in turn supplanting a low-budgeted hybrid between “The Shining” and “Cabin Fever” that it lifted so forcefully from, without any of the actual success from those predecessors. In addition to this, the only other momentary crutch that this film rests the mass of its burden on is within the confines of its unique filming location, with a getaway lodge that balances the best in isolation factor and upper class privilege of its darling protagonists. Because there are twelve respective characters within our story’s confines, a setting is needed that can not only house each of them comfortably, but also garner with it a rich history playing into the film’s supernatural elements, and with the Strawberry Lodge, a real life tourist spot in Kyburz, California, the film manages this quality, along with further playing into the realism aspect that it reaches for in the aforementioned Covid conflict.

NEGATIVES

The scariest thing about “Fear” is the on-screen text that states early on that this film is directed by Deon Taylor, a creatively and categorically spontaneous director who is responsible for some of the worst films over the past decade, with his latest being the magnum opus to that sentiment. Its thrills and chills are lifeless, with cheaply telegraphed jump scares and artificially weightless computer-generated effects producing a far more hilarious than haunting impact to their smothered influence, and the atmosphere, or lackthereof from Taylor’s direction, constantly invokes a cheaply rendered consistency of ugly looking visuals and Mario Paint color filters to the engagement that feels distracting for all of the wrong reasons. In addition to this, the air of a cheap production finds itself compromising aspects of editing, in turn leading to a few problems that make it all the more difficult to faithfully invest to the depths of the storytelling, cementing a sloppily squandered execution in more than a few meandering aspects of quality that feel foreign for the big screen captivity. The pacing makes a 95 minute run time feel twice of that, with the conflict of the plot not fully materializing until the one hour mark of the duration, and the many jaw-dropping instances of continuity errors throughout the film’s visual storytelling in everything from character placements and proximities, to inconsistencies in wounds, proves a grave disservice to audience investments, with even the smallest details scouraged in technical matters that often get away from the helmers of its problematically plagued existence. This is then pushed further with a predictably vapid screenplay, full of exposition-heavy dialogue and underwritten character motivations that confuse and contort before they ever connect on a single element of originality, making this feel like a collection of scenes from better films that constantly subscribe to the idea that those are the films you should be watching. One such instance early on pertains to the characters sitting around a campire and discussing in detail each of their deepest fears. Not only is this dull to listen to between as many as twelve different characters, but it also obviously illustrates where the film is going, regardless if you know anything about it in the first place. As expected, this puts the script against a wall, leaving it desparate to introduce these aforementioned fears in an effectively resonating manner, but just squeezing it of the kind of desparation and obviousness that robs it of any single compelling element to the investment as consequence. Finally, and most offensively, the performances unanimously across the board are so criminally flat that they maintain consistency without assembling a single palpable presence between them, making it difficult to invest or even care about their respective plights. Some of this can certainly be blamed on the lack of familiarity with the collective ensemble, with rapper-turned-actor T.I being the biggest name among the bunch, but the bigger problem is within the dramatic flatulence that they continuously let rip during scenes of high stakes intensity, making a supernatural haunting and pandemic plague feel like a stubbed toe while walking in a dark hallway, and with it condemning the already irredeemable enveloping to embarassing levels of emotionality that prove its heart or head is never in the right place.

OVERALL
“Fear” doesn’t even begin to describe the paralyzing emphasis that you should feel if ever faced with such a cinematic dilemma on streaming. The awful acting, pedestrian production values and streamlined screenplay leave very little to justify the engagement, and in bringing one of the year’s worst so early in the year, provides proof in the pudding that January wasn’t as harmless as socially conveyed. Mask up and keep your distance from this paranormal plague.

My Grade: 2/10 or F-