‘Fear, Inc.’ Expands The Business Of Horror | Film Review

“That’s not scary”

If you’re a horror fan by any measure of dedication, you have uttered this phrase at least once throughout your cinematic existence. Some of us do it with nearly every nod to terror we ingest. With the innumerable titles available, it is completely within reason that our senses have grown immune to the oversaturation of cheap thrills and musical cues most films in the genre provide.

Along comes Fear, Inc. A gimmicky, yet eerily plausible, horror-comedy concept revolving around an ominous business venture that – when summoned – provides its clients with the most terrorizing experiences imaginable. You love horror movies? Great. But, do you want to LIVE a horror movie? If you’re feeling bold, give Fear, Inc. a call. Then shore up the defenses and get prepared, because you have just unlocked Lemarchand’s box and hell is coming. Soon.

Joe Foster (an unrecognizable, yet perfectly cast Lucas Neff) is every horror aficionado we know, constantly offering a spiraling commentary on the state of horror films. Watching countless films overflowing with copious amounts of corpses, slashing and bloodletting, Joe is bored. He’s seen it all. This is a character I can associate myself with far more than Tony Stark or Han Solo, and having screened hundreds of these flicks myself, I can relate. It’s a genre that suffers from countless retreads and repetitive scares. It has, for the greater part, become predictable.

Joe learns there is a company – Fear, Inc. – that provides a mobile haunted house aesthetic, a live-action nightmare where Joe is the star, he’s electrified. What self-respecting blood worshipper would NOT want to partake in a party celebrating the soon-to-be dead? One misplaced phone call later, Joe and his friends (Caitlyn Stasey, Chris Marquette, Stephanie Drake) find themselves knee-deep in platelets and squeals as their own twisted homage to The Game plays out before their very eyes.

What if this isn’t a game, though? What if Joe has not set in motion a living RPG, but instead activated a small cult of serial killers who thrive on the fear inflicted on others? Could this secret society of savagery instead be seeking out complicit victims for their own high-stakes version of RISK? As the film plays out, the truth behind it all will be at your discretion, and the joy lies in deciphering the rules.

Fear, Inc. writer, Luke Barnett, and director, Vincent Masciale, are not trying to reinvent the wheel and this is not a game-changer in the world of horror. Instead, the film aspires to harken back to the days when the genre was not striving so hard for intellectual respectability and focused on the most important aspect of filmmaking: entertainment. From the Scream inspired opening, to the Cabin in the Woods meets Saw plotting, through the incessant nods and winks to the classics: Fear, Inc. is love letter to fans, from fans.

Some people may not comprehend how shrieking from your inner core, curtains soaked in blood and a copious body count can even amount to entertainment. This movie is not for those people. Stay in and catch up on Grey’s Anatomy. But if you’re the type of person who feels that overwhelming rush of adrenaline when a movie hits the right note, edges closer to the screen with every slash of a knife, or even when your closest friend scares the bejeesus out of you leading to a full-blown verbal tirade and slap assault of revenge on said compadre, then this flick is right up your alley.

Fear, Inc. puts the FU back in fun.