Fear (1996)

This is one I just picked up at random. I'd heard alright things about it, mainly on Bravo's 30 Even Scarier Movie Moments. Mind you, that list is no guarantee that a movie is good. Hostel was #1 on it and I hate that damn movie but I digress. A movie about an obsessive boyfriend who turns out to be a psychopath? Not the most original plot but I figured, "It could be entertaining." I've always liked thrillers about seemingly normal people turning out to be crazy like Fatal Attraction and The Hand That Rocks The Cradle. When I saw it, my reaction was simply, "It was okay." It's no classic by any strain of the imagination but it tells its story fairly well and is entertaining enough.

I feel that movies like this, no matter how cheap they are or how poorly made they might be, can strike a cord with somebody because the fear (no pun intended) portrayed in them is a very real one. Unlike unstoppable killers like Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees, monsters from outer space, zombies, werewolves, etc., there are people in the world who are real psychopaths, who are just freaking crazy and can be unbalanced enough to even kill. Anybody who's been stalked knows this. I just can't imagine how horrific that must be, for somebody to completely invade your life for one reason or another and just refuse to take "no" for an answer. Some of the scariest parts of Fear deal with stalking, making it relatable even if you think the movie is bad.

The story of Fear is simple and pretty typical: 16-year old Nicole Walker lives with her father, her step-mother, and little step-brother. The relationship between Nicole and her dad, Steven, has been more than a little tense since the divorce with her mother. At a dance club one night, Nicole meets David McCall, a charming, kind young man whom she quickly falls for her. Their relationship quickly accelerates, to the point where David takes her virginity. Steven, however, is instantly put off by David. At first, it seems like he's just an overprotective father but as one thing leads to another, it becomes clear that David is, in fact, a very violent, obsessive and jealous man who won't let Nicole go even after she breaks up with him.

One thing that makes the movie work is that the acting is above decent and the characters are developed enough that they're worth caring for. Let me just say that I'm not a fan of Mark Wahlberg. Sometimes he's okay but a lot of times he comes across as rather wooden to me. His voice tends to really annoy me as well. It's not his Boston accent so much as the inflection of the voice coupled with it. I don't know how to explain it. It just really annoys me.

That said, I think Wahlberg does a pretty good job here. The first time Nicole meets David, he does come across as rather charming. But when he meets her family, especially when he meets her dad, it becomes obvious that something isn't quite right about him. The biggest warning sign is when Steven tells David that Nicole's curfew is 12:00 and when Steven's not looking, David sets the clock back a half hour. But the first true warning sign that something's very wrong is when David sees Nicole hugging her friend Gary and David brutally attacks him, hurting Nicole in the process. Nicole stops seeing him and David is clearly crushed. Eventually, however, he apologizes and says he did it out of love. They get back together and things seem okay until Nicole follows David back to his house one night and sees him violently take her friend Margo upstairs in the middle of a wild party. Nicole then realizes that David is a monster and breaks things off for good. And that's when it really becomes clear that David is a very disturbed person.

Wahlberg is really good at being intimidating and coming across as insane. First of all, he's a big, well-built guy. He could easily kill somebody if he wanted to (which he eventually does). Second, even before Nicole breaks up with him, his obsessiveness and antagonism towards Steven is clear. When Steven warns David to stop seeing Nicole, David uses everything that Nicole has told him about her father against him; how he's let Nicole down before, how he wants her to be his little girl forever, and how he's not fulfilling his wife's sexual needs. After Steven colorfully threatens him, David goes as far as to beat himself until he's hurt to make it look like Steven attacked him. He's so obsessed with Nicole that he'll actually hurt himself to keep her. But like I said, he really goes off the deep end when she breaks up with him. He tattoos her name on his chest, stalks her at the mall, trashes Steven's car, and even goes as far as to kill her friend Gary. It all leads up to David and his gang-like friends attacking Nicole's house. When one of his friends makes the mistake of trying to have his way with Nicole, David coldly kills him. To the end, David is determined to kill Steven so Nicole won't have to be daddy's little girl anymore, even when Nicole is pleading him to stop. And that ends up being his downfall.

Reese Witherspoon is an actor that I've always been a bit indifferent towards. I don't hate her but I've never had any incentive to see half the movies she's in. (Not one word about Legally Blonde.) Still, she's likable here. The first couple of times I saw the movie, I thought she was being rather bitchy towards her father but now I realize that she's playing a typical teenage girl whose parents are divorced. It's never made clear why Steven and Nicole's mother divorced but judging from Nicole's feelings towards her dad, it was more than likely his fault. Or that could simply stem from the fact that apparently after the divorce, Steven wasn't always there for her. Either way, she's a typical teenage girl who's coming of age and wants a boyfriend. She likes to party with her friends and whatnot. She's smitten with David early on and believes she found a real Prince Charming. He's even the first person she has sex with, which makes him even more unforgettable. Margo tells her that she'll always remember her first (which takes on a tragic new meaning when David's true personality comes through). Even before they have sex, David fingers her when they're riding a roller-coaster and nobody can see. Can't help but feel that the ups and downs of the coaster is meant to be symbolic of what she's feeling at the moment.

Unfortunately for Nicole, she also discovers the dark side of dating when David's true personality is revealed. He does accidentally hit her at one point but even afterwards, she makes it clear to Steven that this isn't about him and that he should give her some space. But once she sees what David does to Margo, she feels betrayed by both of them and becomes depressed. And she then has to fear for herself and her family when David refuses to let her go. Fortunately for her, she has a father who's determined to keep her safe.

The best performance in the film to me is William Petersen as Steven. At first, does he come across as too easily angered and can't say "no" to his job but has no problem saying it to his family. Eventually, it becomes clear that, while he does come across as overprotective, he does love his daughter and his family. He must know that he has let Nicole down in the past and wants to make up for it. That's why when his suspicions about David are confirmed by his violent behavior, his attitude, his taking Nicole's virginity, and the fact that it turns out David lied about his past, he takes action. It becomes a battle of wills between him and David, especially when he knows how tense his and Nicole's relationship is. One good scene is when Steven sees David passionately kissing Nicole and he gives him a smug look like, "I'm kissing your daughter and you can't do anything about it." When David trashes his car, Steven decides an eye for an eye and trashes the house he's living at. Probably not the best course of action because it ultimately puts his entire family in danger but it shows that he's not going to take this psycho's crap. In the end, Steven ultimately saves his family, engaging in a brutal fight with David and ultimately killing him. That's one father whose family you don't screw with.

Alyssa Milano as Margo at first seems like a typical overly sexual girl but when David violent takes her upstairs to have sex and Nicole dumps her, you can't help but pity her. It's especially horrific when David threatens to hurt her if she doesn't make things between him and Nicole right again. Amy Brenneman starts out as a bit antagonistic towards Nicole, even saying that she has so much makeup on that she looks like a slut at one point, but when Nicole becomes terrorized, she's there for her. It makes her more likable than she initially was. The rest of the cast wasn't great but did their jobs accordingly. I really felt bad for Todd Caldecott's role of Gary, who ends up first being beaten and ultimately killed by David.

While not exactly a very scary movie, there are some tense scenes. The biggest ones are when David confronts Nicole in the bathroom at the mall and the climactic attack on the house. Director James Foley does manage to create some mild suspense but except for the very idea of them, the scenes themselves I don't feel are as frightening as they could be. As much as I've praised the acting, I didn't really feel all that scared during those scenes. I don't really know why. Maybe it's just that I've seen so many much scarier films, this just feels kind of average. Maybe it's just such an apparent Hollywood movie that I knew everything was going to eventually work out. Or it could be that I've never been stalked before or had my house attacked. For anyone that has experienced that, it's more than likely a whole different story. I don't know. Even though it's a thriller and the acting I never found it exactly very scary.

There are a lot things in this movie that could have been improved. I didn't care for the soundtrack. The songs that play throughout aren't my cup of tea but the actual music score is pretty generic and forgettable. While the attack by David and his gang on the house is an exciting scene, I think it would have been more terrifying if it was just David himself trying to get in, instead of involving his punk friends. I guess I just wanted David to have not that much of a connection to other people except for Nicole. I guess that would have made his obsession with her more palpable to me. Finally, while it's great to see Steve get his revenge on David, I actually wanted the fight to be longer and more brutal, for Steven to really make David pay for all that he's done. I guess I just have issues and am a bit more unforgiving but I wanted it to be more satisfying a final confrontation.

Like I've said, Fear is an above average teen thriller for the time. It has good acting, is never boring, and does play out its premise reasonably well. Still, I've seen so many better thrillers of this type so it ultimately comes across as just middle of the road. I ultimately feel that they could have made it much more distinguishable by giving it a better title. There are many movies that are just called Fear and it's such a generic title that it doesn't really help the film stand out. Final verdict: nothing special but watchable. Recommended for a dull evening.