Review of In Fear (2013) by Thomas W — 05 Jun 2014

The psychological thriller, In Fear, stars Iain De Caestaecker ('Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.', Filth) and Alice Englert (Beautiful Creatures, Ginger & Rosa) as a newly dating young couple, Tom and Lucy.

The happy couple is taking their first weekend getaway to a music festival and staying in a remote country inn in the Irish countryside. Driving through the dead of night, they take a wrong turn -- or do they?! -- and find themselves on a maze-like course of dark, narrow, hedged country roads shrouded in shrubbery.

They quickly deduce that theirs is the only automobile on the eerily quiet back roads and that they have unknowingly put themselves into a vulnerable position at the mercy of an unknown psychotic tormentor who (very creepily) reveals himself in shadow alongside the road that they have no choice but to continue to travel upon.

As they get further from civilization and their car begins running on fumes, it finally dawns on them that they might be in trouble as their "puppet master" is just getting started with them! Without ever realizing it, the pair have relinquished their control of nearly everything to this unknown being and now they are only left IN FEAR.

Like the two films Locke and Buried, most of the action In Fear unfolds in one single location -- Tom and Lucy's car -- and by blending some claustrophobia with paranoia and a mixture of agoraphobia the film's director, Jeremy Lovering ('Sherlock'), has given In Fear a feeling all its own.