20th October 2018 | 31 Days of “Alternative” Horror: In Fear
In the wake of the Blair Witch Project, new and economically driven filmmakers realised how profitable found footage movies could be. Before that it seemed nothing more than a gimmick, but the smell of the next successful blockbuster was in the air. What’s more, it was possible within an attainable budget. The focus on found footage movies over the last two decades has been extreme and it’s fair to say over-saturated. Some even forgot that they were making a phone footage movie and placed cameras and obscure angles operated by third person omniscient cameraman who belonged outside of the movie instead of operating within.
But what filmmakers didn’t see as a successful element within Blair Witch was how a movie works when you’re cast is kept relatively in the dark, having actors completely immersed with strong improvised performances. In the Blair Witch Project, the cast were fully zipped into the body bag of their characters and they rarely knew what was happening around them. Other than their own hand held cameras, they didn’t see the crew unless otherwise directed. For In Fear, the crew were always there. This is of course not a found footage movie, but we are ourselves an intrusive lens, like a home invasion, into the lives of this young couple, Lucy (Alice Englert) and Tom (Iain De Caestecker) who have only just met. Tom invites Lucy to a festival in Ireland. She’s all for it, and so they travel together in his car. Almost arriving at the festival, Tom says that he’s booked a hotel, for the festival isn’t beginning until the following day. After a little uncertainty and gentle persuasion, Lucy accepts. However, finding their way to the hotel is not as easy as it seems.
The two main cast members Iain and Alice weren’t given the whole script. They were given enough to rehearse their sense of familiarity for the early daylight scenes. The events that happened in the darkness were thrown at them without their prior knowledge. Much of what was said and indeed, the way it played out was very much in the moment, even though it still had to fit in with director, Jamie Lovering’s ultimate plan. As actors trusting in the process, Iain and Alice didn’t know what to believe. They even became extremely wary of each other for if they were given enough information for their character for that day’s shoot — one might have been told, and not the other. This bled over to their characters and created a tone, a feeling of unease right from the very beginning. The claustrophobia and paranoia inside the car was real. For them it was a rush. A unique way of working that upped their game. Nothing could be taken for granted.
For one scene, their car hit a stone in the road, which was incidental to the drive, but neither could be sure that it wasn’t a setup. Iain decided to stop the car, get out and check the tyres to make sure there was no damage. This was a creative choice, in character. He had no idea what was planned. What else could he have done? Another example is when they wonder away from the car searching the woods. The car alarm goes off and as Iain explained in the DVD commentary; he was waiting for somebody to say cut, but when nobody on the crew said a word, he had no choice but to react to the car alarm in character. This time, it was a setup.
Nothing is ever overplayed, and it is paced evenly, with tension building to the melody of suspense. It’s unnerving, making this a breath-taking film with a core firmly grounded in reality.
Written by: Stephen Radford
website: stephenradford.com
Next: 21st October: Demon Seed
