Miedo

Reese Witherspoon appeared in two "guilty pleasure" flicks in 1996--Fear and Freeway. She's quite the commodity now but in the early to mid 90s, her choices were a little more interesting (The Man in the Moon is one of the few movies of the past fifteen years to make me choke up). Fear, on the other hand, is big budget exploitation, and it held my attention, even though I was too embarrassed to admit it at the time. Heck, even the tag line ("together forever...or else!") was cheap. The movie is basically Romeo and Juliet for the MTV crowd, but by the end it becomes a slick '90s version of "Straw Dogs." But the cast (including William Peterson, Amy Brenneman and, as one of the meanest characters in '90s film, Mark Wahlberg) does not act like this stuff is beneath them. And the finale, in Peterson's high tech house, was engrossing. No expectations going into this (which I recommend), but really not too bad, when all is said and done.

Movie like this either reach out and pull you in or they don't. Fear pulled me in. I rented this movie about a week after Halloween of 1996 and put it in my VCR not sure what to expect. 2 hours later I ejected the movie from the VCR feeling somewhat dazed and overwhelmed. Fear isn't a classic. But it works well. It is scary, violent gory and well made. The reason it works so well is because it was made by people who knew what they were doing. The whole stalker style of movies is full of uninspired trash that sounds like it was made for the USA network.

Fear stands heads and shoulders above that (And to some extent above the original Fatal Attraction). It's not afraid to push, to pull us inside, to scare us and give us a good conclusion at the end, one that movies of this type always mess up.

***

Nice, innocent teen Nicole (Reese Witherspoon) falls for handsome, muscular, soft spoken David (Mark Wahlberg) not knowing he's a psycho who wants her--forever. Good thing she's got a nice, muscular, protective father (William Petersen).

OK, it's no masterpiece and the plot is very familiar, but I was never bored. It's well-directed (especially a roller coaster ride), has beautiful scenery and architecture (look at the house where Witherspoon lives with her family) and a script that, if not always credible, never stops moving. The last 20 minutes really rock. A little unpleasant at times though. As for the acting--Witherspoon is OK. At times, she's totally believable--other times she's not. And she's obviously over 17. Petersen is very good playing the understanding, protective dad. A nice, understated performance. Mark Wahlberg is (surprisingly) very good as the psycho. He plays the nice guy and the evil guy very effectively. REALLY nice bod too--what a chest! But he needs some serious voice lessons--his Boston accent kept creeping in. So, a pretty good thriller. You could do worse.

I mean it's ok but so dated and not in a good way. The acting is laughable in many places apart from the step mum and dad but definitely not worth the high rating on here. Easy to watch and it's fine but a 5 is all it deserves

The story behind the film "Fear" is nothing new. Obsessive love leading to dangerous fatal attraction. But I'm not ashamed to say that I really enjoyed watching this movie. To be sure, there were the typical cliches (did anyone not know that the security guard was SO dead!). However, the action in the film keeps things moving along at a steady pace, and the tension builds towards the reasonably satisfying climax. Performances by the lead characters were generally quite good. I found Mark Wahlbergs character to be quite convincing and quite menacing, though I agree he would certainly benefit from some speech coaching. The two young female leads, Reese Witherspoon and Alyssa Milano, did a good job playing the victims, and certainly add value to the film for their attractiveness alone. The standout performance for me was that of William L. Petersen as the father. Most of his actions/reactions rang true to me. Was "Fear" a great movie? Not really. Was it a good, satisfying and ultimately entertaining way to spend 97 minutes? Yes indeed. Even my wife stayed awake till the end, and that's worth an 8/10 alone.