In Fear (2013)
It's interesting that the "Agents of Shield" series, which was set off to be a vehicle for background character, seems to have two background characters who out-do everyone else in the cast. I am, of course, referring to the two scientists Fitz and Simmons. Why do I bring this up here? Because Iain De Caestecker, who plays Fitz in "Agents of Shield" is one of the main actors here.
![]()
He's a strong actor and was able to give a lot of charm to his role during what I suppose you might call 'the boring bits' of the movie. Similarly strong here is Alice Englert who I haven't seen anything before. The two leads have great chemistry here.
He's a strong actor and was able to give a lot of charm to his role during what I suppose you might call 'the boring bits' of the movie. Similarly strong here is Alice Englert who I haven't seen anything before. The two leads have great chemistry here.
In Fear starts off strong with a couple trying to find a hotel and getting lost in endless winding roads surrounded by high trees and high bushes. The signs seem to point them in circles, the phone reception is awful, the satnav in the car is on the blink and it's hard to know whether it is just pure bad luck or malign human agency keeping them from their destination.
So with this creepy set up I thought perhaps we were going to find out hidden secrets about our protagonists or they would uncover some kind of sinister truths about the location where they are lost. Or perhaps this would be a more down-to-earth tale of two people caught in a stressful situation together being driven apart by fear and paranoia with no one but each other available to blame.
None of these is the right answer. I'll leave out any spoilers from my review as per usual, but I can give a vague outline of my feelings. With the car driving around in circles and the characters getting more and more stressed out, the film clearly needed a payoff, but if there'd been a good payoff available I suspect the wait would have felt worth it. Sadly, the ending proves that the writers had no idea what message they intended to send. The final part of the movie is utterly bizarre and not in a good way.
I think the clearest sign that the writers had no clue what they were doing is the regular reference to a visit to a pub. We start the movie with Englert being spied on in the pub toilets before the couple leave and decide to make their way to the hotel. From then on, the question of what happened to De Caestecker's character in the pub before their left keeps on being raised. It's actually a complete red herring and the finale has no real relevance to that, or anything else in the movie to be frank.
D+
