Fear, Inc (2016)

Fear, Inc is a fun and inventive little comedy horror, light on actual big scares or gore moments but easily making up for it with the sheer entertainment factor of the main premise.

There's a company that you can hire to bring your greatest fears to life. That company is called Fear, Inc. As a treat for Joe (Lucas Neff), a huge horror movie fan, his friends decide to place a call and throw themselves into a real life horror movie scenario. Then they change their minds. Or do they? Are they even able to cancel the plans that have been quickly put in place? What's real and what isn't?

The good thing about Fear, Inc is that it mentions the fact it is very similar to The Game. Paradoxically, the bad thing about Fear, Inc is that it mentions the fact it is very similar to The Game. There's no getting away from the fact that this is a horror riff on that idea, and I appreciate the film-makers being upfront about that, but there's also no getting away from the fact that this doesn't have the resources or smarts to quite match that film. It also doesn't throw in enough references and gags, unless my eyes were deceiving me. If I paid to be thrown into my favourite genre for a life experience then I'd want to be picking up on little details that keep me on edge and make me think of the many horror movies I love.

Director Vincent Masciale, making his feature debut with an expansion of his short, written by Luke Barnett (who also stays on board here), does a decent job of sketching out the plot, making the steps from unease to horror as logical and believable as need be, and allowing the characters to have some fun and appeal to viewers before the tension starts to build. Barnett doesn't excel with the actual characterisations, the cast sell this more than the dialogue, but he does well with the film-related banter.

Neff does fine in the lead role, I can't imagine many horror fans who don't enjoy seeing someone portray a big horror fan onscreen, and the other three main players - Caitlin Stasey, Chris Marquette, and Stephanie Drake - all do well as they joke around and have fun en route to being potential murder victims. There's also a fun small role for the always welcome Richard Riehle.

It gets bonus points for not being just another typical slasher film, and for not just joining the ever-growing hordes of zombie movies and found footage films, but Fear, Inc is an entertaining near-miss rather than an outright home run. Worth your time, worth your support, and probably even worth an occasional rewatch.

6/10

You can buy it here.
Americans can buy an import here.

The Amityville Haunting (2011)

EASILY one of the worst movies that I've ever seen. EASILY. And I think that people know me well enough by now to know that I'm a very generous reviewer who can put up with a lot of rubbish. If something looks like an effort has been made or has some heart then I'll go easy on it. If something at least has fun despite a low budget then I'll admit that I was mildly entertained. Many bad movies can still have some good points. This film, basically, had absolutely nothing going for it at all.

The laziness is easy to spot from the very beginning. The movie brings up some title cards that tell viewers about the infamous Amityville house. One piece of information concerns the Lutz family and how they were plagued by paranormal activity during their two year stay there. Sorry, two years? Anyone who has seen either of the movies featuring the Lutz family or who has read the book or who even just knows of the story knows, surely, that the family lasted 28 days. That was it. We then get some footage taken by people pottering around a house at night and then, eventually, we get to the main part of the movie - a family moving into the accursed house and suffering from some activity of the paranormal type.

It's a real shame that this movie is SO bad because I have enjoyed the other found footage films from The Asylum. In fact, Paranormal Entity, Gacy House and Anneliese: The Exorcist Tapes were easily among the better titles churned out by the company that specialises in cheap 'n' cheerful rip-offs. It's easy to think that found footage movies are the easiest kind to make but, in reality, they take just as much (and sometimes more) planning and effort as any other movie. Sometimes. Though we can assume that nobody told director Geoff Meed that.

To call the people onscreen actors would be insulting to others in the profession. Too harsh? Okay, maybe Gracie Largent and Amy Van Horne do better but Jason Williams gives the worst performance that I can recall, and that includes my memory of Troll 2. He's not helped by a horrible script but that's not an excuse for just how bad he is. Speaking of horrible scripts, I couldn't even find out who wrote this film so maybe it was plotted out and then improvised or maybe the writer has had an attack of shame and gone into hiding. Young Devin Clark also fares poorly and he's stuck with being the character who films everything despite almost everyone else telling him every few minutes to just put down the damn camera and give them some space.

It's always the biggest problem in films of this type - why would someone keep filming? - and there's no moment in this movie that even remotely comes close to making a decent excuse for it. Some security cameras are also used but most of the footage comes from this young lad always being told to stop filming.

I could have been generous to this movie and given it a 2 or a 3, some of the effects are okay and . . . . . . no, that's all I can think of, but I was so angry by the time the end credits rolled (despite the absolutely hilarious scene in which the father of the family goes into military mode) that I knew I had to warn everyone away from this sloppy, amateur, unscary cash-in. Avoid at all costs. I hope that either Geoff Meed took a HELL of a lot of notes while working on this movie and aims to keep getting better at his job or that he just realises being a director isn't for him and gives up.

1/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Amityville-Haunting-DVD-Luke-Barnett/dp/B007JI9B6A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348212190&sr=8-1