Review of Dread (2009) by Cody M — 30 Jan 2010

Everyone's afraid of something, yes. But some people "have fears", and others "suffer from major debilitating traumas". Chitchat with a combat veteran, or a rape victim and suddenly one's fear of snakes seems like a mild inconvenience.

In Dread, some students do a fear study, inviting fellow students to sit and share what scares them most. Some are major, some are minor. Unfortunately one of the researchers, Quaid, is waaaaaaaay too curious about what people will do when forced to face their fear, and has a horrifying nonchalance at the sight of his victims' mental collapse and self destuction when confronted with what scares them most.

Quaid, as you might expect, has a backstory. It involves an ax. And his solution involves many pills. When he decides to flush his pills, things jump up a notch.

There lots of blood'n' guts in this one, but the red oozing isn't the scary stuff. The actors who play three of Quaid's victims put in excellent works of people who are having their sense of security stripped away from them. They quite literally loose their minds with fear. Quaid's cold-bloodedness at the sight of his handiwork is the truly unsettling part.