1/5 Fear dying of ennui.
  by Robert P. Beveridge (Cleveland, OH)
Fear House (Matthew Miller, 2008)

When an early scene in your movie has three different people starting to try and talk a person out of shock with "Hey Samantha, it's me", it should tip you off that someone didn't pay quite as much attention to the script as they should have. Sometimes it's an oversight, but in the case of Fear House, it's simply a sign of what you're in for with this intensely stupid, boring piece of tripe. "Did you think I picked this house on accident?" Oh, for the love of pete. (And why do we call bad things tripe? Why not, say, sweetbreads?)

Plot: reclusive writer (Aleece Jones) buys old house (after an opening scene that tells you this is a really bad idea, but has no other connection to the script at all), then disappears for nine months. A number of people all descend on the house at the same time (coincidentally!) to find her: her brother (Matthew Stiller), her agent and his assistant (Matthew Montgomery and Elizabeth Price), a woman whose father supposedly disappeared in the house some time ago (Meredith Barnett), and the writer's estranged husband and his new girlfriend (Ryan Caldwell and Kiersten Hall). When they all get there, the writer explains to them (in a somewhat hysterical manner, of course) that they cannot leave the house; whatever their greatest fear is will kill them before they make it out the gate. Two of the group try and die messy deaths (one of which has, of course, been set up beforehand so we can see the truth of the assertion); the others try to figure out how to get around the curse, while, of course, fighting amongst themselves and setting up stupid romantic subplots. The rest of the movie, not surprisingly, has to do with finding inventive ways to kill people.

To put it succinctly: this movie has not a thing to recommend it, unless you have a thing for really bad acting from really cute women. (Barnett, especially, has some unintentionally hysterical scenes.) You can safely ignore the fact that this movie exists, and you will be the happier for it. (half)


3/5 Passable thrills
  by Nathan Christian (New Stanton, PA USA)
Pretty good direction and a good idea for a Story. But horrible acting. The sets look good too. But don't expect much else. Short on thrills, long on darkness.

2/5 Shouldn't a "Fear House" have at least a smidgen of atmosphere within its walls?
  by Daniel Jolley (Shelby, North Carolina USA)
I love a good haunted house movie - heck, I love a fair share of bad haunted house movies - but I do not love Fear House. It's not that the story is all that bad (although it is pretty bad), it's the fact that this film never manages to create any atmosphere whatsoever. The only thing remotely close to suspense comes in the form of wondering when and if the nerdy executive-type girl will finally get to let her hair down and allow her underlying hot-ness out for all to see - and even that proved disappointing. Fear House also suffers horribly from non-ending-itis, by which I mean it keeps going well after it should have ended. It's like the director is a doctor who refuses to admit that his patient is dead; not only is no sign of a pulse ever detected, the corpse is left looking much the worse for wear from all of that wasted manic effort once all is said and done.

After a pretty silly opening scene shot in some kind of weird fuzzy-vision for no apparent reason, we accompany a motley crew of folks heading to a house out in the middle of nowhere in search of answers related to two disappearances. The one that really matters is Samantha Ballard (Aleece Jones), a young and successful writer who went missing almost a year earlier. Her brother Anthony (Matthew Stiller) and her agent Morty (Matthew Montgomery) - along with Morty's lovely assistant Fiona (Olivia Price) - have finally tracked her down and plan to bring her home - and to her senses. For some murky reason, Eva Tinski (Meredith Barnett) thinks she will find her father there, as well. Then there's Samantha's no-account ex-husband and his new floosie secretly following up from the rear. Well, they do finally find Samantha, but she seems to have gone more than slightly cuckoo for cocoa puffs. When she finally speaks, she warns everyone that "she" (the ghost of some little girl) won't let any of them leave - in fact, anyone who tries to leave will die a death inspired by their deepest fears. You can probably guess how things go from this point on.

By and large, the acting in this film isn't all that bad. Unfortunately, though, Aleece Jones reminds me of Amy Irving, which makes the pivotal character of Samantha about as weird and spooky as, well, Amy Irving. The CGI and other special effects aren't exactly going to grip you, either, especially toward the end when the director apparently decided on the spur of the moment to try and pull off one spectacular death scene but ended up producing something laughably bad. Despite all of these problems, though, I still might have given the film three stars - if it had ended when it should have rather than stumbling along for several more minutes.

5/5 Cool Twist
  by Sky (Hollywood, CA)
If you want to ponder what it would be like to die by your craziest fear, you'll like Fear House. In an age of the predictable, it was quite refreshing to not be able to predict the outcome; and, if you like horror movies, this one has a cool twist.

4/5 Fear House
  by Matt Byrnes
The holy grail of low budget movies; one location, 5 (or so) cast members, and mysterious, gruesome murders.

It's an interesting premise. A group of people find themselves trapped in a house they can't escape from and one by one, each gets confronted by and then dies by their worst fear.

The pacing picks up in the second and third acts as the victims try and figure out what is the nature of the cursed house they are trapped inside of and how to escape with their lives.

The usual slasher flick morality message (ie. any teenagers that have sex will be killed) is skipped over and a much harder target it shot for. Instead, the victims are confronted by a past they are trying to escape from before being served up their just desserts. In one case, the negligent woman who let her sister drown gets decapitated, and in another, the self-involved and greedy agent gets smothered. We get to enjoy the guilty pleasure of their demise.

For those that enjoy campy horror, there is plenty of that, too. A severed head, sliced fingers and so on.

The psychological nature of this film combined with the low budget makes for a harder target, a narrower bullseye. While there are a few misses, there are enough hits to warrant a viewing by fans of the horror genre.