Hi-Fear is a collection of horror shorts brought to you by some of the same people involved with Hi-Death and Hi-8 (which I've not seen yet, but it's not like you have to watch anthologies in order). First up is the wraparound story tying the films together. These parts of films like this are almost always the weakest segments, and that's also true in this case. The premise is that a woman is hired to make a horror comic full of stories about "her greatest fear" (evil laughter) on very short notice.
Apparently she's very afraid of being dragged to a whorehouse full of devil women, as that's the first story. "Losing It At The Devil's Whorehouse" is probably the weakest story-wise -- I mean, my summary is basically just the title because that's all it is -- but has the most fun with the premise. A nebbish guy is dragged to a brothel by his buds to lose his V-card. And very quickly he learns that the women there are demons from hell and hi-jinks (ooh, probably the next movie title in this series!) ensue. This feels like the cast of the burlesque haunted house got together to make a movie short. If not, hey, maybe they should think about making a live attraction.
The next story is "When Shadows Come Alive." Imagine a late-night thriller about sins and double-crossing that just happens to be set on the land where the Texas Chainsaw Massacre family lives. You'd think this would be a no-brainer to pull off, but something about it didn't sit quite right with me. It needed to either be a romantic crime drama or a comedy, not some weird failed fusion of the two. Or, maybe putting it more generously, I think it tried to do too much for something in a short film format, which made everything underdeveloped.
Her next tale is "The Streets are Watching." It's all about street people and this one guy they all fear. Probably explaining any more than that is a spoiler already, so I'll just say it was OK but predictable. The lead actress' beauty seems quite a bit out of place for this setting, but films always have to try to balance realism and glamour.
That last bit is "Day out of Days." A woman accompanies her boyfriend to a cabin where a film shoot is supposed to happen, and they meet up with a makeup artist woman who worked (and played!) with the guy before. Both women make the awkward situation feel believable, but they don't really do much with it, unless I am missing the point. At any rate, nobody else shows up, weird things happen, and they can't get out because of said weirdness. It seems like it wants to be some religious allegory, but it doesn't quite gel. I can't decide if the fault was that it didn't have time (and maybe budget) to give the much-needed extra details or if they purposefully withheld them thinking it made the story better.
So, the film is nearly over. The evil voice demands yet again "What Are You Afraid Of?" (the wraparound's segments oh so imaginative title). She finally spills it... which is extremely mundane and goes nowhere. But, hey, nobody expects the framing device to be any good.
