Fear Clinic

Fear Clinic, loosely based on a series of shorts that appeared on the now defunct Fearnet, stars horror legend Robert Englund in his best role in years as a once celebrated doctor obsessed with curing humans of fear. But when an early, seemingly successful test group comprised of traumatized survivors of a mass shooting begins to not only regress but get worse, he begins to seriously doubt the validity and even safety of his methods.

However, this doesn't stop his test groups' faith in him. They all return to his clinic for further treatment, being locked up in a weird, sensory deprivation tank and forced to face their fears. But something evil, even supernatural, is lurking in the abyss he thrusts his patients into. It is fear itself, hence the title.

Feart Itself is fairly above average for low budget horror, but you really have to be patient with it. In fact, I have to say the filmmaker, the man behind the middling Laid to Rest movies, requests an unreasonable amount of patience from his viewers. It does not help that movie's production design is atrocious, all neon green lights and phony looking scientific equipment that reminds of the worst elements of 80's horror.

That's the bad part. The good part is that movie has a really good cast behind it. Robert Englund, in a role very different from his mad scientist portrayal in the original Fear Itself series, does a really good job as the benevolent but uncertain doctor. The female lead, Fiona Dourif (who was last seen costarring with her father Brad Dourif in Curse of Chucky) is an outstanding and unconventional horror heroine, more believably smart and capable than most of the female leads in these types of movies. Thomas Dekker also does a fantastic job portraying a troubled young man with a traumatic brain injury. Rounding out the cast are mostly adequate, if not entirely impressive, supporting players like Kevin Gage (Strangeland, Heat) as a crotchety maintenance man, Corey Taylor (that's right, the lead singer of Slipknot and Stone Sour in his first film, and he probably shouldn't quit his day job) as the hotheaded chief orderly, and several vaguely familiar actors as the other patients.

The cast, along with a really solid third act that includes a genuinely surprising twist and some cool creature FX from Robert Kurtzman, make this worth watching for horror fans, but just barely. The movie has major pacing problems, a weak first half, and can never overcome its low budget trappings but it shows glimmers of promise from almost everyone involved making this a more or less entertaining, watchable low budget horror movie.

Loved the idea for 'Fear Clinic', which for recent modest to low budget film viewings was one that was really quite creative. Executed right, 'Fear Clinic' had potential to be quite decent. The cover/poster/advertising was attention grabbing and does make one want to see the film. Robert Englund too is always watchable, despite being in a lot of bad projects.

'Fear Clinic' could have done so much more with such a great concept and is not necessarily a great film, or even particularly good. There are a fair few problematic elements here, including deciding early on whether to continue watching. That said, it is watchable enough, just about worth sticking with and the potential is not completely wasted. There are plus points, and fortunately in 'Fear Clinic's' case those plus points are quite big.

The best thing about 'Fear Clinic' is the acting which is really quite good, particularly from an against type but refreshingly sympathetic Englund and Fiona Dourif, providing a female lead that in lesser hands would have been completely bland and passive but given some steel with Dourif. There is some assured directing in the latter stages.

Surprisingly the effects are pretty cool and are nowhere near as amateurish as one would fear. The final third does intrigue and does have tension and suspense and the photography has slickness.

Unfortunately, it does take a while to get there. There are moments of promise in the first two thirds certainly, but 'Fear Clinic' does take far too long to get going and the draggy pacing is apparent frequently. Tension, suspense and creepiness are not consistent for such a freaky concept.

Some of 'Fear Clinic' is very predictable and the clarity not always there, parts are confused and disjointed. Despite the final third being where the film picks up significantly, the climax is on the bizarre side. Not all the production values are good, with far too much of an over-reliance of neon green lighting, which does make one feel there's something wrong with their eyes, a cheap-looking setting and editing that lacks fluidity.

In summary, watchable but not much special. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Sometimes I should not read the reviews on here when there are only 5 reviews. I think it might have been people that worked on this movie and the reviews are rigged. I started watching it with an open mind, and seeing that it was not the usual horror story but something with a different concept I thought I was going to like it. But even if the theme was good the story was not well executed for me, it could have been much better. First of all it took much too long before it might get interesting and then finally when you could call this movie a horror story the special effects were pretty mediocre. I was glad the movie was over so I could watch something else and better to forget about this one.

It was alright. Not super exciting or scary though. Kinda a show to watch in the background while doing other things. Had potential, but didn't do much with it.

The acting is sub-par, and its really sad because it was a movie that could've been up there, but it's not even as good as "Truth or Dare" and even "Smile" was more interesting.

I guess if you have a phobia some scenes might be uncomfortable for you, but otherwise it's not scary in the slightest. There's some twists that you don't expect, but any effect they would've had was lost in translation/the lack of effective acting.

Waste of time to watch. Spend your time on something else.

I was pretty disappointed by this film. It wasn't as bad as it could have been since there are some big stinkers out there, but it also could have been a lot better. If you're expecting closure from the web series, look elsewhere. This movie ignores anything that happened before and reinvents the story for a new audience. That isn't entirely bad since it gives the story a chance to reinvent itself, but the problem here is that what we're given doesn't really live up to expectations.

Englund does a pretty good job here and part of me really enjoyed seeing a more sympathetic Anders, but the lack of a cold, calculating Anders willing to achieve results by putting lives in jeopardy was what made the web series so much fun. He wasn't necessarily a sadist, but this posed a good question as to what would happen when things went south and the man in charge is already willing to put people in danger to forge new ground. In a way he was one of the web series's monsters.

The ending wasn't awful, but by the time the film ended I was already ready for the closing credits. There are some great special effects here and everyone tries really, really hard, but this just didn't work out and I can't help but think that this would have fared better as a web series rather than a film.