Review of House of Fears (2007) by Brian S — 16 Aug 2010
Stop me if you've heard this one before.
The owner of a haunted house attraction travels to Africa and brings back a statuette that has the power to manifest people's fears. She doesn't know this, and why someone would need to go all the way to Africa to get props for their haunted house is beyond me, but what the heck. It just so happens that the haunted house attraction she owns is called House of Fears; it has nine rooms, each of which has the theme of something people are afraid of. There's death, ghosts, knives (new one on me), spiders, clowns and four others that escape me at the moment. It's a pretty random assemblage of phobias... but what the heck. The owner has no further role in the film.
Six teenagers meet up at a party. There are two stepsisters, one bitchy and one nice; a jock; a slutty chick; a nerdy guy who has keys to the haunted house; and the token black guy. They decide to have a tour of the haunted house with the statuette in it, get locked in, and have to get out before they get killed.
The rest of the flick consists of the teens being picked off by things they're afraid of. The nice stepsister, who turns out to be the hero, is particularly afraid of scarecrows. There's no scarecrow-themed room in the haunted house... but what the heck.
The story is paper-thin, as is the acting. This is a formula flick all the way; nothing in it will surprise anyone who has seen a few horror movies. The evil clown is probably the scariest thing in "House of Fears," but it appears all too briefly and is killed all too easily. Other than that, what we've got here is a series of vignettes of the teens being killed in not particularly gruesome ways, all knitted together with them running about yelling, "We've got to get out of here!" The choice to have a scene early in the film in which all of the teens conveniently tell us what their fears are, except for the one afraid of clowns, insures that this carnival attraction won't hold any surprises at all. But... what the heck.
PG-13 horror at best. You'll begin forgetting this one as soon as the feature ends.
This review of House of Fears (2007) was written by Brian S on 16 Aug 2010.
House of Fears has generally received mixed reviews.
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