Wow, where do I start? The central idea for the story is not a bad one and could've been something decent had it not been for the terribly written dialouge, the absolutely embarrassing acting and the all around derivative feel of the film. Like honestly, how many movies did this director have to rip off in order to shoot his film? It was all terribly familiar and ground that has been covered in other, better horror films. It was almost so bad it was good to be honest. I have busted out laughing like that in quite a while. Some of the lines these actors have to deliver are startlingly bad. Nobody talks like this and nobody would react like this. I also have to mention the soundtrack for the film. It was just awful and did not fit the film one bit, it made cheesy scenes even more cheesy and it ruined what could've been tense scenes as well. Just a trash movie all around.

0 fears out of 5.

Fear takes a cool premise in all the wrong directions and squeezes as little out of the concept as possible. This is a movie that begs for a psychological aspect but is given none.

The movie starts with an intriguing opening. But the setup shows you it will max out at mediocre. I kept trying to give it a chance, I can enjoy a flawed movie. But at one point about halfway through, the laughter started. I laughed so hard, so many times, especially in the last 30-ish minutes. I had to restrain myself from being audible in case someone around me was actually enjoying it.

As I always say, I can forgive bad quality in a horror flick if it comes through on the scares and creep factor. But Fear is completely unscary and zero creepy. And it's one of the worst examples of poorly done jump scares. So many false scares. And every one has an obnoxiously loud sound effect for no logical reason. At one point it becomes comical.

This movie is also incredibly dumb. The lack of logic throughout is astounding. I was in disbelief multiple times. The characters are moronic. It's just bad writing.

I've been annoyed with studios always limiting their movies with a PG-13 rating (looking at you, M3gan). I was happy to find out this is rated R. But the R-rating has almost nothing to do with the horror or gore. And there's no sex or nudity. So I guess it's just for language. Way to take advantage (eye roll).

As weird as it sounds, I'd rather have something like this that I can laugh at instead of something with zero positive or negative entertainment value like Prey for the Devil. But this is an all-around terrible attempt at a horror flick. I give it 7 stars on the SoBad scale (so bad it's good). (1 viewing, opening Friday 1/27/2023)

SPOILERS

Fear can make you do crazy things. Imagine if this evil was psychologically messing with the characters, causing them to be overwhelmed with fear, resulting in their demise. Instead, the evil forces the characters to kill themselves while reminding them of their fear. The characters don't want to kill themselves and physically struggle not to, but the house physically forces them to. BAD WRITING.

The entire premise is personal fears for each individual character. They each announce those fears early on. You would expect that to by the primary horror. Instead, the majority of the fear has to do with a virus. BAD WRITING.

I legitimately can't believe they attempted this "twist." It's so hilariously obvious. The news program announcing the virus is distorted, talking all creepy, and even starts saying things like "you're all going to die." It's like they couldn't decide if they wanted to make the news report creepy or the basis for a twist, so they did both. But the attempted creepiness was a dead giveaway that the virus was made up.

And as soon as the one friend said she had to leave to go be with her son, I knew immediately she was going to be fine... It wasn't until the end when I realized... why hasn't she shared this with her other friends who are deathly afraid...

I assumed the movie is so bad it would just ignore this plot hole. But instead we get a hilarious excuse. She did try to tell them by texting them. She even asks, "why aren't you answering?" So your closest friends are locked in a house with zero communication and think they're all going to die... Your son is perfectly safe. Why would you not go back and tell them??? Worst. Friend. Ever.

A few other really dumb things I can remember:

-When they think the virus is able to travel hundreds of miles and get into the house, they try to find things to block the windows and vents. So you'd rather die from oxygen deprivation? If the virus was as described. There would be nothing you could do to prevent it from getting inside.

-The entire plan of getting the sick friend (T. I.) down to the basement is so illogical it made me want to cry. They all wear bandanas around their neck. That's not suspicious at all. Then they all go to his room and tell him his friend is hurt in the basement and needs his help even though he's not a doctor. Why would they all have left their hurt friend in the basement?

Then they convince him to get all the way down there extra conspicuously. The best part, instead of continuing this plan that is somehow working, instead of leading him into the room, they now put their bandanas over their faces and physically carry him to the room... BAD BAD BAD WRITING.

They were most exposed to the virus while walking him down... which they seemed to know since one of the characters would no longer allow his girlfriend near him.

There is so much more I can't remember, and this review could go on forever.

I saw Fear, starring Joseph Sikora-Ozark_tv, Jack Reacher; Annie Ilonzeh-Chicago Fire_tv, Peppermint; Ruby Modine-Shameless_tv, the Happy Death Day movies and Tip T. I. Harris-the Ant_Man movies, Get Hard.

This is a low budget horror movie-you know, with plenty of jump scares and loud music cues. A group of friends rent and gather at an isolated lodge for a weekend to celebrate Annie's birthday. Joseph is her boyfriend who plans on asking her to get married, but has not had the courage yet-he has not found the right time. Ruby and Tip are some of their friends. Joseph is also an author that picked this particular lodge because of it's history. It seems that a lot of witches used the lodge to practice their lifestyle. When a contagious airborne disease hits the entire world, the friends find themselves stuck at the lodge-tv reports tell people to stay indoors-which is just what they needed to hear. During a gathering each member of the group talked about what they fear the most and I guess the witches were listening because each one of them start having their fears come to life.

It's rated R for bloody violence and language and has a running time of 1 hour & 40 minutes.

It's not one that I would buy or rent. If you want to see it, I'd wait until it comes to regular tv.