Director: Drew Gabreski
Writer: Gerald Nott (Screenplay)
Starring: Brian Krause, Jaimi Paige, Louis Herthum, Jared Abrahamson, Michelle Hurd, Michael Leone, Noell Coet
Plot: Not long after John Chambers and his family arrive at their new home in a small country town of Pennsylvania, John begins to experience sleep paralysis. Lying there paralyzed, trapped within his own nightmare, other-worldly beings visit John. They are entities which exist in the darkest shadows of the night and can only be seen out of the corner of one’s eye. These encounters begin to haunt John, transforming to complete terror as he discovers the entities’ sole purpose… the abduction of his seven year old son.
Runtime: 1 Hour 39 Minutes
There may be spoilers the rest of the review
Verdict: Solid but Not Scary Horror Film
Story: Be Afraid starts as the Chambers family moves into the small town, Dr John (Krause), Heather (Paige), and Nathan (Leone) who get joined by elder son returning home Ben (Abrahamson) where the family is looking to start a new life as the town’s doctor.
When the family gets visited by locals who all suffered their own losses which leads to Nathan the youngest family member believing he is being visited by a man at night as John starts suffering sleep paralysis.
Thoughts on Be Afraid
Characters – Dr John Chambers moves his family to the town and fills the investigating side of the story searching for the answer to what might be happening in the town. Heather is the wife John and mother of Nathan that spends most of the film telling John what to do, nothing much else. Chief Collins has been dealing with the previous missing child and with this latest case must help the doctor with the danger he might be facing. We also have the kid who getting the visions and the elder son needing to prove himself to his father. To be honest we do end up meeting too many characters in this film as each gets time but that takes away from the characters that need time.
Performances – Returning to the biggest problems being the number of characters, this shows in the performances because we just don’t get enough time for the performers to give us the best performance to their abilities.
Story – The story follow the traditional check marks for a horror, the family move to new town, strange things have happen in the past, true this works but the problem comes with too many characters to introduce into the story leaving us trying to keep up with all the characters through story unfolding, we also don’t get any proper answers to just what the creatures are that are doing in the haunting.
Horror – The horror doesn’t start till later in the film, we do get a couple of good scenes which do increase the horror level but not understand the point of these moments doesn’t help.
Settings – The small town setting gives us an idea that everyone knows what is going on in the town between the characters and our new family is like us entering the town with the mystery as to what is going on.
Special Effects – The effects are interesting because the creatures look full practical which makes us respect the idea of a real monster over a CGI one.
Scene of the Movie – Bath time.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – Too many characters to follow.
Chances of Sequel: It could have one but I hope it doesn’t.
Final Thoughts –This is a horror that could have worked but having too many characters doesn’t help us support the family that are experiencing the horror, the creatures are good but are also left unanswered to their motives.
Overall: This is a weaker horror because it finds itself bogged down with too much going on.
Rating
