Fear Inc. (2016)

Summary 
Fear, Inc. follows a company of degenerates who can be hired for a premium to bring your greatest fears to life. But when horror junkie Joe Foster's customized scare seemingly begins, he and his friends must decide if this company is there to scare them or make them pawns in their own sick game.

Genre : Horror/Comedy
Country : USA

Cast : 
Lucas Neff : Joe

Caitlin Stasey : Lindsey
Chris Marquette : Ben
Stephanie Drake : Ashleigh

Director : Vincent Masciale

My opinion

“I just overheard you guys saying this wasn't scary enough.
If you ever wanna be really scared, just call that number.
Custom scares just for you.
I promise you will not be disappointed.”

I always had a problem when filmmakers combine horror with comedy. I thought the "Scary Movie" franchise was unspeakably bad. Although the first film was alright. A whole series of parodies on famous horror classics crammed into one movie. There were some fun chuckle-moments. But I gave up after episode two. It became a parody of itself. Never a good sign. Still, I was pleasantly surprised by "Fear Inc.", which eventually followed the same pattern, but the ending and concept was slightly different. Although at a certain point I got tired of that same routine with Joe (Lucas Neff), who reminded me of Jake Gyllenhaal a lot, thinking it's just Fear Inc. playing games with him. (Peter... That was the initial idea, dumbhead)

Joe is a typical American good-for-nothing who's living a carefree life thanks to the financial situation of his girlfriend Lindsey (Caitlin Stasey). So he spends his days with unabashedly doing nothing, solo-playing booze games and probably watching horrormovies on a huge flat screen all day. Joe is a living Wikipedia when it comes to horror and he can quote effortlessly from every horror classic and play scenes from it without hesitating. There's really nothing so to speak where he's afraid of. He gives a romanticized cinematic twist to any life-threatening situation. Until the moment a stranger gives him a calling card of "Fear Inc." during a date. It's a company that'll make your worst nightmare to come true. Custom scares so to say. And despite the warning from his best friend Ben (Chris Marquette), who came over to spend the weekend at Joe's place together with his wife Asleigh (Stephanie Drake), that the company isn't particularly reliable and the people running it have a somewhat sinister reputation, Joe can't restrain himself to contact that firm anyway.

It's therefore not surprising that from then on some disturbing situation start to occur. Before they know it, the four are attacked by masked invaders and the whole situation gets out of hand. Nevertheless, Joe continues to believe that it is all a hoax, put in motion by Fear Inc. As expected, I didn't exactly think it was a funny movie. But even though this is a low-budget film,it surprised me pleasantly. It was quite thrilling at times and the horror scenes nevertheless looked very professional. Joe wearing a Freddy Kruger outfit was perhaps the funniest part but mostly it was only bland humor. Horror fans will appreciate the references to horror classics and recognize them immediatly. Especially the "Saw" parody was extremely successful.

All in all this was a highly enjoyable film. Despite the limited resources and the brief period in which it was made, "Fear Inc." could convince. And that because of the concept, the sometimes bloody but splendid realized horror scenes and of course the cast. It's a film where you're never sure how it will eventually end up. "Fear Inc." is not really creepy enough to call it horror. And it's also not funny enough to call it comedy. But with a group of friends and drinking the same amount of alcohol as the four did in this film, it could well be an ideal film to fill a Saturday night. Lots of fun guaranteed.

My rating 6/10
Links : IMDB