In Fear

Mr. Pat
23 hours ago
6 min read

You know what I love about Batman? Well, one of the things. I love that no matter how insane his feats get, most people can just shrug and say, "Yeah, that sounds about right," when they know that should never happen. He's a guy who pals around with what are essentially gods, and they're all scared of him. Whenever he's going up against someone who could wipe him off the map with the blink of an eye, it gets handwaved away with the phrase, "Batman has a plan for everything." It's so stupid, simple and awesome. Plus, the fact that he has plans to beat the shit out of his friends if they ever turn bad is pretty funny. What's even funnier, when they find out about it, instead of trying to hide it, he pretty much calls them stupid for not doing that themselves. I love Batman. And you know who could have used the Caped Crusader? The characters in...

In Fear (2013)

What a segue, am I right?! Anyways, in one of my earlier reviews, I made mention that that movie had brought up a lot of questions. Now, if I were able to deliver a message back in time to last week me, I'd tell myself I hadn't seen nothing yet.

A couple, Tom and Lucy, had just started dating two weeks ago, and she agreed to go with him to a music festival in Ireland. The movie actually starts with a shot of the countryside while his voicemail plays in the background. He tells her to invite her friends, and they'll all go camping. When we finally see Lucy, she's being creeped on in the bathroom, and she adds a message to the graffiti on the stall. When we meet Tom, played by Iain De Caestecker (Fitz from "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D), he ushers her out, and we find out he had some type of altercation with several blokes inside the pub.

Once outside, he drops the bomb that they won't be staying at a campground, but he booked them a hotel instead. She's a little taken aback at first, but it doesn't take much convincing before she's all for it. Eventually, a man in a truck comes, and they're supposed to follow him to the hotel. While driving, they're chatting and flirting, enjoying each other's company, when the driver ahead of them stops and then signals for them to go straight before he peels out in the other direction.

With no other option, they drive ahead and come across a wooden gate with a big chain on it. Tom undoes the chain with little effort, and off they go, ignoring the ominous warning. We're treated to the British countryside that's supposed to be Ireland as they travel through the winding roads following the signs pointing to the hotel. Eventually, they realize the signs aren't taking them to the hotel; in fact, they keep sending them right back to a little cabin that warns about trespassing. They start bickering as they keep driving these roads and end up back at the same place multiple times. They're both pissing each other off by throwing shots at one another until Lucy sees a man standing next to Tom while he's peeing.

Tom thinks she's being crazy and clearly doesn't have the patience for what he believes is Lucy's rambling. That is, until a man pulls her out of the car, and Tom has to fight him off. Thoroughly freaked out, they both get back in the car and start driving despite the car being low on fuel (they call it petrol). This goes on for a bit, but it gets really weird once Tom accidentally hits a guy with his car.

This is also where the review gets hard to put together. The dude they hit, Max, says those same guys are attacking him and he needs help, and he wants a ride in their car. Something seems sketchy about this guy, but they let him in anyway. Personally, if I were Tom, I would have made him sit in the front seat, alas.

Max starts normal enough, but the longer they drive, and the more he talks, it's clear he knows more than he's letting on. He's also obviously getting to both of them. At one point, he asks them if they're a couple, and after an awkward silence, Lucy says no. Tom doesn't say anything, but the hurt is all over his face. I mean, I can't say that I blame her. He got pretty aggressive in their arguments, but it's rough knowing he went through all this work to plan something fun for his new girlfriend, and it went up in smoke. Then, when Max drops his facade, he grabs Lucy from behind and says he has a knife to her neck, demanding she choose for him to kill her or Tom. He gives her to the count of 10, and when he gets to one, she yells "Tom" multiple times at the top of her lungs.

Once Tom gets done screaming in fear, Max just laughs and says he doesn't even have a knife, and Tom should have crashed the car because they were wearing seatbelts and he wasn't, and they could have killed him. With a laugh, he leaves the car.

I'm giving more of the plot than I usually do because the only way to wrap your head around this movie is to explain it. The problem is, to fully do that, I need to give you a beat-by-beat rundown of the thing, and no one has the time to read that much about a movie you've never heard of and will likely never watch. Let's just say a lot more happens, and it's just as confusing as what came before.

Here is where I struggle, I've already complained this month about movies being ambiguous and leaving you with unanswered questions, but this movie... well... it's an exception. The reason I'm giving this movie a pass, and the reason I liked it, is that it raises so many questions. Like, I can't begin to recount how many questions this movie left me with. The thing I like about it, the movie answers none of them. There was a Reddit thread for this movie from eight years ago that STILL has people coming on it and asking questions. There's no consensus on whether what was happening was supernatural. I tend to think it was, because there would be too many lucky breaks and have to rely too many wrong decisions for it to make sense.

What I can tell you for sure, that Max, whatever he is, clearly wants to mess with them. I've seen someone say he was a "fae," which is a fairy. I couldn't find anything specific in Irish folklore about why that would fit, but one of them mentioned he was able to get their names despite both of them not wanting to give them up. But to let you know how much he's enjoying this game, at one point, she runs out of gas and then gets out of her car, and somebody grabs Tom. After chasing after them, she eventually makes her way back and finds a gas fan sitting on her front seat.

I'm trying to avoid giving more plot away, but when she finally gets to the hotel, she realizes she'd been screwed from the jump, and a later reveal is rough to watch. And that brings me to the end. There's a final showdown, the movie has been building to the entire time. Right when we're expecting to maybe get an answer, it cuts to black right before we see what happened. I'm going to be honest, and it sounds weird to say, but I loved the ending. The whole movie taunts you with questions that it has no interest in giving you answers to. I appreciate that the movie sticks to its guns and ends without any resolution or moment of clarity for its audience. It did something that annoys me in movies so much that it circled back and became something that I appreciated. I should hate this movie, but it crawls into your head and sets up a picnic in there. I have to give it props for relying on something I don't like and making me enjoy it.